“I could carry a horse with her on its back,” replied Nick. “Get Mercedes and meet me at this door.”
“No,” replied Tom. “We go out through the cellar. It is a secret way which I built as a boy. My father had it walled up with masonry, but I know where there is a crowbar, and I can tear the wall away in two minutes.”
“Good,” said Nick. “Get Mercedes and meet me in the cellar, then.”
When the detective entered the room where the injured woman had been taken, he saw at a glance that consciousness had returned to her while her attendants were wrapped in the influence of the drug, and that, although very weak and faint with fright because of her unavailing efforts to rouse the nurses, she was still thoroughly conscious, and instantly Nick determined that the best way to deal with her was to tell her as much of the truth as he dared.
Rapidly he explained to her who he was; that the accident which resulted in her injury was part and parcel with a plot to burn and rob Linden Fells; that in carrying out the plot, every member of the household had been drugged into unconsciousness save herself, and that she had been spared only because she was not able to swallow the coffee; that the house was at that minute surrounded by their enemies, and that the only way of escape was to submit to being carried away from danger; and then, without more ado, he took her in his arms and started for the cellarway.
At the bottom of the stairs he encountered Tom, who held Mercedes in his arms. She was in a stupor, and so utterly unconscious of the events that were taking place around her.
In the cellar it was the work of a moment for Tom to find the old and now rust-eaten crowbar where he had hidden it years before, and with it to knock a hole through the wall where his father had caused the lad’s “secret passage” to be stopped up. But this was a time when the foolish prank of a boy was destined to stand the man in good stead—to be, in fact, the means of saving many lives.
Ah! the enthusiasm of youth! The labor of many weeks bestowed upon that “secret passage” by the boy Tom Danton, was bearing fruit this moment.
The passage led straight underneath the rose-garden to the edge of the bluff which overlooked a deep ravine, and at the end opened into a log hut, which had now fallen into decay, but which, because it was almost inaccessible because of the steep sides of the ravine around it, had been forgotten by those who lived on the estate.
It was with relief that Nick discovered when they arrived at the hut that Mrs. Danton had quietly fainted away, and, depositing her on the ground beside her daughter, both men hurried back again through the passage to the mansion.