Up came the two men a few minutes later, passing from one open room to the other, taking a general look at the place with an electric torch, and expressing whispered surprise at the havoc we had played with the walls. Finding the doors of our two bedrooms locked, they did not touch them for fear of disturbing us.
Seal was impatient to make an attack upon them, but I considered that discretion was best, and that to watch was more politic than to show fight. So we waited in silence, until the grey dawn shone through the long corridor. Then at last we heard a slight movement, and the men re-passed in procession as noiselessly as they had come, and disappeared into the room.
Reilly opened the cupboard and listened. We heard a bang as the door in the flooring was shut down after they had descended to the underground burrow; then in a moment he was all excitement.
“Come, help me quickly!” he cried, rushing forward into the secret chamber. “Quick! pile up these stones so that they cannot re-open the flap! They will return very soon. Quick!” And he began frantically heaping upon the trap-door the stones that we had taken from the wall, a work in which Seal and I assisted with a will.
When at last we had secured it by wedging two crowbars across the heap of stones so that it could not possibly be opened from below, Reilly burst into loud laughter and danced with delight, saying: —
“We’ve trapped them, doctor! Trapped them all like vermin! When I left you I rushed down the passage to the well and found it bridged. I drew the boards away and tossed them down into the water. They can’t get across by any means. Come! Let’s close the door!” And he pulled back into its place the stout, iron-studded oak with the supreme satisfaction of knowing that he had entombed the invaders in that damp, dismal burrow which they themselves had discovered.
CHAPTER XXIX
DOROTHY MAKES A CONFESSION
“Trapped the swabs!” cried Job Seal, rubbing his big hands with undisguised delight, although he seemed disappointed that we had not allowed him to come face to face with Bennett. From the skipper’s determined attitude I knew that murder would be done if the two men met, therefore I took to myself some credit for having kept them apart, even though they had passed within a yard of one another.
“Trapped the whole four of ’em!” he exclaimed, his great face lit by a grin as he placed his hands to his sides. “Mr. Reilly,” he added, “I’ve respect for you, sir. You’ve checkmated ’em entirely.”
“I’d thought it all over,” was the younger man’s reply. “And if any of them fall down the well it isn’t our look-out. They had no right to intrude here.”