“Yes,” said Gordon, listening. “Besides, if you come to think of it, this house is pre-Reformation. There was no reason why they should want a secret passage in it when it was built. But when the bad times started, and they wanted a refuge for the priests, the man who came to build the hiding-place wouldn’t play any tricks with a great solid outside wall. He would surely run up a false partition between two rooms.”
“Admirable,” said Carmichael. “It looks as if we should have to trespass on Reeves’ neighbours. Reeves, who lives in the rooms next yours?”
“The one on the left,” sang Reeves, “is Colonel Steele;
I fancy you both must know him,
And Mr. Murdoch’s on the right,
He plays the ’cello, blow him!
Both of them work in London Town,
So they’re both of them out this morning;
Of that there is no matter of doubt,
No possible, probable shadow of doubt,
No manner of doubt whatever.”
“Good,” said Gordon. “I’ll step the rooms, shall I, while you step the passage? We hardly need the tape-measure yet.”
“Better do both, if you won’t mind; then the pace will be the same.” And Carmichael busied himself in wandering round the room looking for cracks till Gordon reappeared. “Well,” he said, “what news?”
“The fireplace wall, I fancy,” said Gordon. “From the door of Colonel Steele’s room to the door of this, walking down the passage, it takes twelve strides. Inside his room, I only take five strides to the wall. Inside this room, I take a bit over five strides to the same wall. Therefore there must be a thickness of about a pace and a half between Colonel Steele’s room and Reeves’. Now one comes to think of it, he wouldn’t hear Murdock’s ’cello if there was that thickness the other side.”
“A pace and a half? The priests must have been on the thin side. Yes, that would be it: there must be a length of about ten feet from the fireplace to the wall on the side of the fireplace opposite to the window. Somewhere in that ten feet we’ve got to find the spring.”
“Good heavens!” said Gordon suddenly, “suppose there’s a sliding panel.”
“A man couldn’t get through one of these panels—not even you, Gordon, in your well-known human-cobra act,” said Reeves, who had stopped singing for the moment.
“No, but a man might put his arm through it, and take the photograph away, and put another in its place, while the people in the room were closely occupied—arranging their hands at bridge, for example.”