“I don’t see much good in all three of us going in. What happens if our man breaks cover through the other entrance? You see, it may be a member of the club all the time; who could turn up smiling at the other end, and nobody have a right to question him.”
“One moment,” said Carmichael. “Now we come to think of it, we do know where the other end of the passage was. We know that the old chapel was the present billiard-room. Why not lock this door, and go down to have a look at the billiard-room? You and Gordon can have a game, or pretend to, while I take a look round the walls.”
This adjustment was agreed upon, and they found the billiard-room unoccupied. It seemed, however, to show signs of recent habitation, for the dust-cloth had been taken off the table, the balls were out, and a cue laid across one corner as if to indicate that they were not to be disturbed. But this was voted accidental: the red was on spot, and the plain ball spotted in balk; spot was in balk, obviously as the result of a deliberate miss. And a glance at the score-board showed that spot had not scored, while plain had scored one from spot’s miss. In fact, it appeared that two people had started a game, and interrupted it after the first stroke, a miss in balk.
“Come on,” said Gordon: “nobody can want to have those balls left undisturbed.” And the two proceeded to play, with a good deal of noisy conversation, while Carmichael investigated the walls.
“You see,” he said, “the same old pattern of cornice in the panelling. With any luck the spring will be the same.” And, sure enough, before ten minutes were up he had identified the spring.
“That settles it,” said Gordon. “We’ll get Marryatt, and he and Carmichael can keep watch outside the billiard-room door. Reeves and I will go down the passage from upstairs, with an electric torch: my experience of fighting in the dark is that the man who has got the electric torch, so that he can see and can’t be seen, has got the upper hand from the start.”
Marryatt was found without difficulty, and consented to mount guard after a minimum of explanation. Carmichael was provided with a revolver, chiefly ad terrorem, for he had no idea how to use it; Marryatt, true to medieval principle, was only armed with a niblick. Gordon took another revolver and an electric torch, and went back again with Reeves to the upper opening. When the panel had been pushed back, it needed but a little fumbling on the inner side to discover a latch. When this was lifted, they found that the wall opposite them yielded to the touch, and a whole section of the panelling turned on a vertical axis, the right side of it coming outwards into the room, the left vanishing into the passage. The work was of miraculous fineness, and when they shut the door again they had difficulty in seeing where the cracks came in the morticing of the old beams.
“Those priests were well hidden,” said Gordon. “I imagine the people who hunted them out simply broke down all this stuff with hatchets. But the Secretary could hardly approve of that. Otherwise, I suppose we’re very much in the position of the Sheriff’s men.”
“And the man inside is very much in the position of the priest.”
“Except for one circumstance.”