Turning to the right Michael stopped in front of a stout door similar to the one they had come through, except that it boasted a lock. He tried it, but it did not open. "I think I'll go and get Jimmy Fripp," he said. "He's much cleverer at opening doors than I am, and we shall waste less time in the long run. You'd better come along too, just in case of accidents. Mind your heads." He went before them up the passage, his torch showing them the way. Once a rat stuttered off almost under their feet, but Margaret had gone through too much to be discomposed by a mere rodent.
As they proceeded down the passage the air became noticeably fresher, and the reason for this was soon made apparent, for they saw a square opening in the side of the passage. No light could be seen through it, but it was obviously a window. Peter stopped Michael to point to it. "Ventilation? But aren't we underground?"
"Yes, and that was one of my main difficulties - to find how this place, if it really did exist - was ventilated. Not very easy with all you suspicious people on the watch. Remember that night you saw me, Marg — Miss Fortescue?"
"Margaret will do," she said. "Yes. Were you looking for it then?"
"I was, but I didn't find it till later. Have you ever looked down the well in that bit of the garden that looks as though it were once a sort of pleasaunce?"
"The well? Oh, I know! No, I hate looking down wells. I don't think any of us found it for quite a long time, did we, Peter?"
"I don't think we did. But I'm afraid I never even thought about it."
"You might easily fail to see it unless you happened to stumble on it as I did," Michael said. "The weeds have grown up all round it, and it only sticks up a couple of feet out of the ground. That's it." He pointed to the opening. "Cut right down in the side of the well. Clever, isn't it? Come along; we'll get hold of Jimmy before we start talking."
"Fripp?" Peter said, following at his heels down the passage. "Do you know Charles and I once heard you holding a most suspicious conversation with that fellow?"
"Did you? Yes, it's his one fault, and I can't break him of it. He will talk where he can be overheard."
"Charles set an inquiry agent on to him. Look here, is he an ex-burglar or not?"
"Yes, he's an old lag," Michael answered. "He was my batman during the war, and I took a fancy to him, and kept him on as my servant when we were both demobilised. He's a useful sort of chap on a job like this. Pick any lock under the sun."
Margaret chuckled. "Aren't you afraid to leave anything about?"
"Not a bit. He's one of the very few who do really turn over new leaves. Sorry he upset you. How much did your inquiry agent get hold of?"
"Precious little. But if he's your servant how does he find the time to travel for Suck-All Cleaners?"
"He doesn't. That's a put-up job. The head of the firm is a pal of mine, and he employed Jimmy to oblige me. It's answered fairly well on the whole, though Marson - that's the head of Suck-All Cleaners - was very dubious. Said Jimmy wasn't the right type at all."
"I don't know about that," Peter said. "He very nearly sold a cleaner to my elder sister."
Michael looked over his shoulder, grinning. "I know. I don't think he'll ever forgive Malcolm. You know, I'm sorry to have to say so, but you people have been the most ungodly nuisances I ever came across. If you had let Jimmy alone in the house he'd probably have found that sliding panel."
"If it comes to that," Margaret retorted from the rear, "if only you'd told us who you were we shouldn't have got in your way."
"You don't know how much I wanted to. But I couldn't. I was acting in absolute secrecy. I didn't even know at first that you mightn't be mixed up in this. And you must see that for me to have told you all about myself would have been most dangerous. You might have talked, or let something slip out unwittingly." He paused, and signed to them to stand still. They saw that they had reached the end of the passage, and were confronted by a flight of worn stone steps. "Will you stay here?" Michael said. "And don't talk, because I'm going to open the trap." He went softly up the steps, and they waited in silence for him to reappear.
Presently they saw the torch-light approaching again; Michael came into view, and behind him was James Fripp. This individual greeted them with a headshake. "Well, this is a fine set-out, and no mistake," he remarked, with an entire disregard of the manners usually required of a gentleman's servant. "Some people don't seem able to keep out of trouble, and that's a fact."
"Shut up," said Michael. "Some people can't keep their mouths shut, and you're one of them. Do you know, Mr. Fortescue heard you talking once, and set an inquiry agent on to you?"
"That's a nice thing!" exclaimed Mr. Fripp indignantly. "Set one of them busies on to me? Why, I'm as innocent as a babe unborn! And if anyone told you different they're a liar. Most of the police are, barring Mr. Draycott, who ain't as bad as some," he added gloomily.
"Come and see if you can open a door without damaging the lock," Michael interrupted, and began to lead the way back.
Mr. Fripp said, with an air of unconvincing virtue: "I'll do what I can, just to oblige, but you needn't talk as though I was in the 'abit of picking locks, sir."
"Don't be an ass," Michael said. "Mr. and Miss Fortescue know all about you."
"No one don't know all about me," Mr. Fripp announced firmly. "There's always people ready to swear a man's life away, and I've come across more than most in my time. You didn't ought to pay attention to everything you 'ear, miss."
Margaret assured him that she never paid attention to malicious reports. Mr. Fripp said that it did her credit.
They walked on in single file until they reached the locked door. Peter judged the distance to be about a quarter of a mile, and realised that the passage must run straight beneath the Priory grounds to the Inn.
Mr. Fripp bent down, and turned his torch on to the lock. Then he felt in his pockets for some slim-looking tools, which he laid on the ground. One of these he inserted gently into the lock.
"Can you do it without any damage?" Michael asked.
Mr. Fripp forgot his role of injured innocence. "Lor' yes, sir! If you'd seen some of the locks I've picked you wouldn't ask me whether I could open this one. It ain't worthy of me, this ain't." He worked in silence for a short while, and then, turning the instrument he held, he pushed the door. It opened without a sound, for it had no other fastening than the lock.
Michael flashed his torch into the room. They saw a press in the centre, and some smaller machines round it. The room was a fair size, and contained only the machines, a few wooden stools, and a safe.
"Electric light and all!" said Mr. Fripp admiringly, and switched it on. "Do themselves proud, don't they? There's no denying it don't pay to be honest, no matter what they say."
Peter and Michael were both inspecting the press. Margaret sat down on one of the high stools, and listened to their highly technical comments. Mr. Fripp stood beside her, and seemed to take as little interest in the press as she did. "Wonderful how they can make it out, ain't it, miss?" he said affably.
She agreed. "Is it all printed by that big machine in the middle?" she inquired.
Michael heard her. "No, this is where they roll it off. Come and look."
She went up to him, and he showed her an engraved plate. "See? That's the plate. The paper goes between those rollers and when the current's turned on, that plate slides backwards and forwards, while the rollers press the paper on to it, and shoot it out this end, roughly speaking."
"I see. It's like looking-glass writing, isn't it? What are the other machines?"
"One of them cuts the paper. This one. I don't understand all of them."
"Neat little affair," Peter said. "I suppose this is the engraver's corner. Wonder who does it?"
"Unless I'm much mistaken, Duval was the engraver," Michael answered. He looked round the room. "Only the one door. Better test the walls, though. Where you find one moving stone-block you're likely to find another."
Peter looked up quickly. "Oh, so
it was you, then?"
"Yes. Sorry if I gave you all a scare. It wasn't me you saw in the cellars, though. That was Fripp. He was trying to find a way into this place from there."
"Look here!" Peter said. "Have we also to thank you for our skeleton? Because if so…'
"What skeleton?" Michael asked, moving along one wall, testing as he went.
"That one we found in the priest's hole."
"I never knew you did. No, that must have been one of the Monk's attentions."
"But, Michael, you said that day at the Inn that you were responsible for what had happened at the Priory!" Margaret objected.
"I don't think I said that, did I? If I did I thought you were referring to the groaning stone. Anything that side, Jimmy?,
"Not that I can find, sir. Nothing there, Mr. Fortescue?"
"Nothing," Peter said, dusting his hands.
"Well, that's something, anyway," Michael said. "They can't get out of this room by any other way than the door. If I can only find the Monk's own entrance I may get him yet."
Margaret was puzzled. "But doesn't he come in through the Inn? What's that entrance for, then?"
"The rest of his gang. I watched them go down this evening, and I watched them come up. At neither time was the Monk with them, and from what I heard they none of them, with the possible exception of Wilkes, know his way in or who he is."
"By Jove!" Peter said. "Then I'll bet that's what Duval had discovered! You know, he came up to see Charles the very night he was murdered, and he told him that though he hadn't found out who the Monk was — "seen his face," was the way he put it - he had found out something."
"I think there's no doubt he did find the Monk's way, and that's why the Monk murdered him. What's more, I still believe it comes out at the chapel."
Margaret remembered something. "Peter, didn't Charles say Duval talked about finding the Monk if he had to go down amongst the dead to do it?"
"Yes, I believe he did. We thought he was cracked. Have you tried to-find an entrance in the chapel, Strange - I mean Draycott?"
"Till I'm sick of the sight of masonry," Michael replied. "And unless I find it I can't be sure that is his way in, so that I daren't make a raid in case he gets away by some passage we don't know of. The rest of the gang's no use unless I can get the Monk. No, there's no other entrance here. We'd better try and find the secret stairway. If we can't, I'll nip back to the Inn, and go to the Priory, and attack it from that side. Come along, Jimmy, and take care how you lock the door."
They went out again into the passage, switching off the light. While Fripp locked the door, Michael bolted the one into the Fortescues' late prison, and fixed the shutter in position again.
"Now as far as I can make out," he said, "we must be standing at the moment either on the level of the cellars, or below them. Probably below, judging from the depth of that opening into the well. And we mustn't forget that on the library side of the Priory the cellars are on the level of the ground. Moreover, if that machine was only just below the sitting-room you must have heard it. The question is what part of the house are we under? If the Inn is there' - he pointed up the passage - "then the chapel ought to be more or less in that direction. Well, we'll see where the passage leads this way." He led them on, flashing his torch ahead. The passage ended in an archway and through this they went, finding themselves in another of the cell-like apartments. It was bare of furniture, and out of it led yet one more.
"Talk about the 'Astings Caves!" said Mr. Fripp. "They aren't in it with this."
"Try for a moving block," Michael said. "Time's getting on, and I must be back at the Inn before anyone's up. Fortescue, you take that wall, will you? Just run along it: never mind about the upper blocks. Get on with it, Fripp!
Don't stand mooning about!"
They started once more to try and move one of the stone blocks that made up the wall. "The things the perlice get up to!" Mr. Fripp remarked. "Give me an honest job of burglary, that's what I say! Well, it ain't 'ere, sir. If we've got many more of these rooms to go over you'll have to send me to one of them sanatoriums where you lay out on a nice balcony the whole blooming day."
But only one other room led out of the one they were in, and it was comparatively small. They started to test its walls, but before Peter had got more than half-way along his side of the room Michael said: "Got it!"
He set his shoulder to the block, and it swung easily and silently on its hidden pivot.
"Took the trouble to oil this one," commented Mr. Fripp. "Now mind what you're about, sir. Let me 'ave a look!"
"It's all right," Michael said, drawing his head and shoulders back into the room. "Only be careful how you step, Margaret. We're right on the staircase. Can you get through if I go first, and give you a hand?"
"Good Lord, yes!" she said. As soon as he had climbed through the gap, she scrambled after him, and found herself standing on the narrow stone stairway. They seemed to be somewhere in the middle of it, for the stairs went down as well as up.
The other two squeezed through the opening, and Michael pressed the block back into position. The light of his torch showed nothing to distinguish this block from any of the others.
"We shall have to count the stairs," Michael said. "I propose to explore downstairs after I've deposited you two at the Priory. Mind how you step, Margaret: the stairs are very steep and narrow."
They climbed in silence, each of them counting to themselves as they went. Margaret's legs were aching badly by the time they came to a halt; and she was thankful to get even a short rest.
Michael's torch was playing over the wall that flanked the staircase on the right, and they saw that the stone had ended, and they were standing behind rough brick. Michael moved on again.
"There! If I haven't lorst count!" said Mr. Fripp disgustedly.
The brick gave place to what looked like a wooden partition of thick deal.
"Clever," Michael said. "Nailed the deal on behind the oak panel to deaden the hollow sound. Here we are!" His torch showed a plain round knob past the panel. He went on up two more stairs, and twisted it. Nothing happened. "That's odd!" Michael said. "It surely must be this knob that corresponds to the apple in the carving the other side. You didn't do anything but turn it, did you, Margaret?"
"No, nothing."
He asked abruptly: "Did the Monk come up or down?"
"Up. I was standing on the second stair, where Peter is now, when the panel closed."
"There's no knob farther down," Michael said. An idea occurred to him. "I wonder - get off that stair, will you, Fortescue?"
Peter moved, and as Michael once more turned the knob the panel slid back.
"Clever little dodge," Michael remarked.
He was interrupted by a strangled shriek from within the library. "Charles, look! look!" Celia cried.
"Seventy-three, counting this one," Peter said. "It's all right, Celia, it's us!"
Chapter Eighteen
He stepped through the opening into the library, as he spoke, and found himself confronting Charles' levelled revolver. Celia and Mrs. Bosanquet were gazing with startled fixity at him, and Inspector Tomlinson had just lowered a Colt automatic.
Charles put down his revolver, and swallowed twice before he spoke. Then he said: "Oh, hullo! Just back?" His flippancy deserted him. "Gosh, you have given us a fright! Where's Margaret? What happened?"
Margaret came through the aperture, and at sight of her Celia jumped up and flew to embrace her. "Oh, darling, I've been thinking you dead ever since ten o'clock!" she said, half-crying. "Who found you? Did you escape by yourselves?"
By this time both Michael and Fripp had come into the room. Charles wrung Michael's hand. "Good man! Yes, we know all about you. The inspector had to split on you."
There was a positive babel of talk. After a while Mrs. Bosanquet made herself heard above it. "But surely that is the man who cleaned all the rooms so thoroughly?" she said in a bewildered voice, and pointed at Fripp.
Michael, who had been speaking to Inspector Tomlinson, now glanced at his watch. "Good Lord, it's almost five o'clock! Fripp and I had better hurry, or we shall run into one of the servants at the Inn. Look here, you people, the best thing you can do is to go to bed, and get what sleep you can. I'll come back after breakfast, tell you some of the things you're all dying to know, and set about the job of finding that other entrance. Now that you've discovered this panel it ought to be easy. There's only one other thing: Fortescue and his sister have got to keep themselves hidden. No one must know that they've been found. See? No one. In fact you must give the impression to anyone you happen to see that you're worried to death, and are sure that they must have gone out, and got kidnapped in the grounds, or something of that sort." He looked at Mrs. Bowers rather dubiously, but she nodded. "Sure you understand? And don't let that housemaid of yours find them here."
"It's her half-day," said Mrs. Bowers. "Nor she don't turn up till nine in the mornings, and mostly late. I'll nip up and make Miss Margaret's and Mr. Peter's beds before she gets here, and she don't ever go into any of the sitting-rooms."
"Better not have her at all to-morrow," Charles said. "Can you get rid of her without her smelling a rat, Emma?"
She thought for a moment. "Yes, sir. If Miss Margaret and Mr. Peter aren't supposed to be here there'll only be the two bedrooms to do. I'll say she can have the whole day, since we're all at sixes and sevens. You leave it to me."
Mrs. Bosanquet had been scrutinising Michael through her lorgnette. She now turned to Charles, and said in the perfectly audible voice deaf people imagine to be a whisper: "My dear, you may say what you please about that young man being a detective, but it appears to me that he is the same malicious person who pointed at me in the dark."
Michael laughed. "I've never pointed at you, Mrs. Bosanquet. I'll explain it all to you later. Come on, Fripp: we'll go back the way we came. You'll turn up again later in the morning, inspector. You understand what I want you to do?"
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