"Do you hear what I say? Come out and show yourself, whoever you are!" he called in a slightly louder tone; and then, getting no answer this time either, he fumbled in his pocket, fished out his match box, and struck a vesta.
The glimmering light showed him what the dusk had so successfully concealed heretofore—namely, the gap in the floor and the underside of the slab which usually covered the entrance to the underground cells, but which was now laid back on its hinges with its lower side upmost and the way to the stone staircase in full view. And in the very instant he made this discovery there rolled up from that gap the sound of somebody running away.
In a sort of panic young Clavering made a dash for the trap, and was through it and down the stone steps in almost no time, the wax vesta flickering and flaring in the fingers of his upraised hand and sending gushes of light weaving in and out among the arches of the passage and the gaping doorways of the mimic cells.
Nobody in sight. He called, but nobody answered; he commanded, but nobody came forth. And with the intention of routing the author of the sneeze and the footsteps, he had just started forward to investigate the cells themselves, when the match burnt his fingers and was flung down sharply. Darkness shut in as though a curtain had fallen. He fumbled with the box to get another match, and had almost secured one when he heard a movement behind him and flashed round on his heel.
"Anybody there?" he rapped out sharply.
"Yes; Cleek, of Scotland Yard!" answered a bland voice immediately in front of him; then there was a sharp spring, a swift rustle, a metallic click-click! His match box was on the floor, and a band of steel was locked about each wrist.
"Good Lord! you've put handcuffs on me, you infernal scoundrel!" Clavering cried out indignantly. "What is the meaning of this outrage? What are——Here! chuck that! Confound your cheek! what are you doing to my ankles?"
"Same thing as I've done to your wrists," replied Cleek serenely. "Sorry, but I shall have to carry you, my young friend; and I can't risk getting my shins kicked to a pulp."
"Carry me? Carry me where? Good God, man! not to jail?"
"Oh, no. That may come later, and certainly will come if you are guilty. For the present, however, I am simply going to carry you to a rather uncomfortable cell at the end of the passage, and put you where you won't be able to run away. I am afraid, however, that I shall have to gag you as well as handcuff you, and make you more uncomfortable still. But I'll manage somehow to get some bedding of some sort, and to see that you don't miss your dinner. You are going to spend the night here, my friend. Now, then, up you come and—there you are, on my shoulder. Steady, if you please, while I get out my pocket torch to light the way. I suppose you realize that I have heard all that passed between you and Lady Katharine Fordham this evening?"