"I had forgotten that," exclaimed Hugh. "It's some more of Lady Jane's poetry.'
"She seems to have been rather hipped that way," I suggested.
"Now you speak of it, I can't recall any other specimens of her wit in rhyme," answered Hugh, puzzled. "Can you, Watty?"
"No, your ludship. 'Is ludship, your late uncle, made a careful examination of Lady Jane's papers, but 'e found no other verses."
"But what was her idea here?" I persisted, for the whimsicalness of the thing interested me.
"Oh, as I told you, she was virulently anti-Catholic," said Hugh carelessly. "It was she, you know, who sealed up the old family crypt and built a new one in the Priory, as the parish church is called. She probably believed that the former monks of the Priory had been more interested in their wine-cellar than in masses."
"But the 'Prior's Vent'? What on earth is that?"
"I don't know, unless it was the way to the wine-cellar. Don't you see the point?"
"No, I don't. And this 'Wysshinge Stone,' too? What could that be?"
"It must have been something connected with entering the wine-cellar. Oh, it's all perfectly simple, Jack. Crowden Priory was one of those establishments guilty of abuses which furnished Henry the Eighth with his excuse for looting the monastic orders. The facts were still a matter of memory in Lady Jane's time, and she took advantage of them to mock the Catholics. That's all."
I did not answer him for I had become engrossed in the decorations of the stone mantel, itself, a magnificent piece of freestone, sculptured in a frieze of Turks' heads, sphinxes and veiled women, ranged alternately.
"Well, she—or her masons, I should say—did a fine job," I said at last, tearing myself reluctantly from the beautiful courses of stone and the even flags of the hearth.
"You'll have plenty of time to indulge your architect's eye hereabouts," declared Hugh from the table. "Come and eat or Nikka will leave you nothing. Watty, what is the news?"
The valet deposited a chafing dish and stand by my place.
"Mr. Penfellow, the Vicar, your ludship, instructed me to tell you the service for 'is late ludship would be tomorrow morning, as you requested. 'E had made all arrangements consequent upon receiving your ludship's cablegram. Oh, yes, sir, and Mr. Hilyer was over from Little Depping this afternoon in a motor—with some ladies, sir—and asked after you. 'E said 'e would be at the funeral, sir."
Hugh frowned.
"I will not have anything to do with that bounder," he grunted.
"'E 'as quite a lively time, so the servants tell me, your ludship," volunteered Watkins. "A regular 'ouse-party 'e's entertaining now, with foreign gentry and all."
"They would be foreign," retorted Hugh. "He can't get a decent Englishman inside his house, and if he thinks I shall fall for him just because I've spent two years in America—" he broke into a sudden grin—"It's rather funny, Jack. I expect he believes I've been metamorphosed into a bloomin' democrat. The bounder!"
"What's the matter with the man?" inquired Nikka.
"Everything! The Hilyers own the next place to us—Little Depping, it's called. They were always decent enough people, but this chap, Montey Hilyer, is a wrong 'un. He got into trouble before the War with the Stewards of the Jockey Club and was barred from the course. Then he picked up a reputation as a card-sharp and society gambler. For a while he used to hang around Continental resorts and fleece the innocent.
"When the War came he enlisted, made a splendid record and earned a commission. The next thing that happened was a scandal in his mess over heavy play, and he was compelled to resign. He's a bad egg, through and through. Odd, though, how he keeps up Little Depping. I believe he's been on short rations more than once, but he always has managed to preserve the estate—and like me, he's the last of the line."
Watkins removed the savory, and received a platter of sandwiches from the butler, who he permitted to come no farther than the door.
"And your ludship may remember Mr. Hilyer married some years ago—before 'e got into trouble, sir," he observed as he placed the platter before us. "She was, if I may say so, your ludship, not one of us."
Watkins contrived to express deep disapprobation, without wrinkling or contorting his countenance, a trick at which I always marveled.
"Quite so," assented Hugh. "She was an actress or something like that. Well, it's in the beggar's favor that he married her. But they can't come footling around here. I'd have the whole County up in arms against me."
We chatted on for a while, and then Watkins guided us to the upper story where three adjoining bedrooms had been made ready.
"The bathroom is across the 'all, sir," he informed me, stopping at my door on his way from Hugh's room. "My room is beside it. You 'ave only to ring, sir, if you wish anything. Good night, sir."
As he left, I reflected with a grin that I had not been so coddled since my schooldays as in the brief period following his adoption of Hugh and myself. For that was what it amounted to. For all his deference and servility, neither Hugh nor I would have dared to withstand any wish which Watkins gave serious expression to, and furthermore, he made us feel constantly that we were obligated to maintain a certain standard of conduct, which he, Watkins, might find satisfaction in.
I was up early the next morning, and a brief scouting tour revealed Nikka's room empty, while Hugh snoozed blissfully on. So I shaved and bathed, and descended the broad, shallow staircase into the entrance hall below. This wing, I noted, seemed to be shut off entirely from the remainder of the house. At any rate, there were no open corridors.
Watkins was arranging flowers in a luster bowl on a table under an oriel window, and I mentioned this fact to him as I stood on the lowest step, drinking in the wonderful satisfaction of a perfectly designed and furnished entrance, something that it takes the average architect ten years to learn how to do.
"You are right, sir," he answered. "There are corridors, but they are shut off, in order to save heat, sir, and prevent draughts. Since the death of the old lord, sir—Mister Hugh's grandfather—we 'ave 'ad such a small family that no occasion was found for all the rooms. And the old wing, sir, is a large 'ouse by itself."
"Well, that makes so much less for us to defend," I said.
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"In case our friends of Toutou's gang should try to attack us," I explained.
But Watkins was as positive as Mr. Bellowes that such things could not transpire in England.
"Oh, sir, sure I am you need not concern yourself for that," he said seriously. "They would never dare. The constabulary, sir—and all that."
"Perhaps," I said. "What is that music?"
He inclined his ear towards the door of a room that opened from the opposite side of the hall to the Gunroom.
"Oh, sir. That's Mister Nikka. 'E's in the music room aplaying to 'imself, sir."
I crossed to the half-open door and peered inside. Nikka was sitting at a pianoforte in a flood of sunshine, and the music poured from his lips and fingers, like the sunshine, passionately intense, warm and vital. It stirred me as I listened, searching out primitive impulses, painting sound-pictures of outlandish scenes, spreading exotic odors over that conventional room. It was rebellious, uncivilized, untamed—and I liked it.
He crooned to himself, rather than sang, but the words and the melody, savage, melancholy, joyously-somber, beat their way into my brain:
Sad is the ache in my heart;The cities crowd me in.I may not breath for their stench,My ears are deaf from their din.
Let me go forth from their ways,Out where the road runs free,Twisting over the Balkan hillsDown to the restless sea.
The dust shall caress my feet,The sun shall warm my limbs,The trees shall tell me their thoughtsAt dusk as the twilight dims.
And I shall inhale the smokeOf fires beside the road;I shall hear the camels gruntAs the drivers shift their loads.
And best of all, I shall hearThe wild, mad Tzigane songs,Cruel and gay and lustful,Like fiddles and clanging gongs.
And in the glare of the campfiresI shall see the Tziganes dance—Women with lithe, round bodies,Men straight as a heiduck's lance.
And perhaps a wild brown maidenWill seek me amongst the throng,And dance with me down the twisting roadTo a wild, mad Tzigane song.
He ended with a crashing of keys, and looked up to meet my fascinated gaze.
"You liked it?" he asked shyly. "I can see you did. It is a little song I have made out of the heart-beats of my people. We Gypsies can make music, if nothing else. And all Gypsy music should be played on strings. Only the fiddle can reach the heights and depths of human emotion. But I have put my fiddle away from me until we have finished this job."
He walked over and slipped his arm through mine.
"Let us see what Watty has for breakfast," he went on, "and send him to awaken that lazy-bones, Hugh."
"But see here, Nikka," I broke in. "Are you really a Gypsy? In the usual sense of the word?"
He considered as he explored a fruit-dish.
"I don't know what you mean by 'the usual sense of the word,'" he answered finally. "I am a Gypsy by birth and blood. I passed my boyhood with the caravans. I learned to play the fiddle with the Gypsy maestros of Hungary."
"It's funny," I admitted, "but I never quite envisaged you as a Gypsy until I heard you sing that song."
Nikka smiled.
"I can understand that. I made up that song because I was feeling the lure of the blood. The Gypsy in me has been crying out for assertion. I think that is one reason why I was so glad to have Hugh call on me. I smelled in his need a chance to sample the old, wild life again."
"Do you believe the Gypsies play a part in this treasure business?" I asked.
He nodded.
"I feel it in my bones. It is a Gypsy tradition, remember. Probably we shall find the interest of some Tzigane tribe crossing ours."
"And then?"
"My tribe fight for Hugh."
"Your tribe?"
"Surely, I have a tribe. They fight for my hand and for my friends."
I regarded him with increased respect.
"That has a delightfully mediæval sound. It strikes me you are going to be the most valuable member of this expedition."
"All for one, and one for all," laughed Nikka.
He waved a greeting to Hugh, who came in at that moment.
"We are talking about Gypsies and fighting," he explained.
"And it seems that Nikka is a potentate who has a tribe to carry out his wishes," I amended.
"I wish we had his tribe here to help us pull down this old stone-box," answered Hugh gloomily. "How else are we going to uncover any hiding-places? And I feel like fighting when I remember that we are going to Uncle James's funeral this morning. Well, the best way to fight, I suppose, is to search. That's the family motto. Jack, you'll have a first rate opportunity to investigate early structural methods in English architecture. I expect you'll be the only one to get anything out of the affair."
Which last was a very poor piece of prophecy.
Mr. Penfellow, the Vicar, received us at the west door of the parish church, a gigantic edifice which was all that was left of the once noble foundation of the Priory of St. Cuthbert of Crowden. With verger and curate, both striving mightily to equal his solemn countenance, he escorted Hugh—and incidentally, Nikka and me—up the center aisle to a high-walled pew directly under the choir. Immediately behind us, Watkins was marshaling the slender array of servants from Castle Chesby, all of whom had come to pay the lost honors to their dead master.
The church was so large that the considerable congregation were swallowed up in its echoing nave. The transepts contained nothing save monuments and tombs. The tempered light that stole through stained-glass windows left most of the space in shadow, but I descried beyond the breadth of the crossing a second box-like pew identical with ours, and in it a company whose gay raiment and gabbling ways were out of place in contrast with the stolid piety of the village folk and neighboring gentry.
"There's Hilyer," muttered Hugh in my ear, as the verger pompously presented his mace and the Vicar withdrew toward the altar.
But we had no time to spare for observing the county's black sheep. Mr. Penfellow's quavering, nasal voice began to intone the stately rite of the Established Church for the dead. The shrill voices of the choir-boys responded.
Our eyes became fastened upon the oblong casket resting on its low catafalque under the choir railing, which contained the body of James Chesby, that quaint, whimsical, Twentieth Century knight errant, who had upheld the traditions of his race by tilting over the world in pursuit of a prize which all sober men proclaimed to be impossible of attainment.
And he had as good as found it! Laughed at, derided, mocked and ridiculed, he had persisted doggedly in what he had regarded as his life-work. He had succeeded where all others had failed or feared to venture. And at the last, probably when he envisaged complete success in his grasp, he had accepted death rather than yield the prize to any but his heir. He must have had good stuff in him, that slight, wan-faced slip of a man, whom I had only seen as he lay on his death-bed in the hospital, his eyes shining to the end with indomitable spirit.
As I thought of him, cut and hacked by that brute Toutou, I found my fingers clenching on the book-rack in front of me; and glancing down, I saw Hugh's knuckles, too, were white. We exchanged a grim glance. For the first time we understood fully that we were playing a man's game, a game in which there was no limit. And we experienced the thirst for action which comes from a desire to slake unsatisfied vengeance. This task we had set ourselves to was more than a hunt for treasure. It was likewise a pursuit of James Chesby's murderers.
Nikka must have read somewhat of our thoughts in our faces, for he reached behind me and slid a hand over Hugh's straining knuckles; and I saw that his lips were shut tight and his eyes blazing like coals under their eagle brows. And then my eyes chanced to stray toward the opposite side of the crossing, and in the shadows that hovered over the Hilyer pew I glimpsed a pair of eyes that gleamed with the evil green light of a beast of prey. For an instant only they showed. Then the shadows moved, and they disappeared. Startled, I looked again, and saw nothing. It must have been fancy, I told myself, a trick of the sunbeams filtered through the particolored glass of the windows. And I turned my ear to the cadenced voice of the Vicar:
"Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay."
The formal service was soon ended, and after the congregation had filed out, a little knot of men from Chesby farms poised the casket on their shoulders and paced slowly after Mr. Penfellow and the verger down the broad, winding stairs to the pillared crypt. At the east end, beneath the altar, the verger unlocked a massy oaken door and behind that an iron grate. There was a minute's delay while he lit tall candles, and then the little procession marched on into the last resting-place of the Chesbys.
It was an octagonal chamber, Tudor in style and extraordinarily spacious, the groined roof springing lightly from slender pillars. At the far end was a simple altar, and all around the other segments of the octagon were ledges in two tiers. At intervals over the floor space were tombs and sarcophagi. The flickering candles brought out an occasional inscription.
"Hugh James Cuthbert................twenty-eighth Baron Chesby."
"Claudia Anne, Lady Chesby, aetat 34, beloved.......... James, twenty-first................"
On several coffins reposing on the side ledges there were the moldering remnants of old flags. On one lay an officer's cocked hat and sword, tarnished and covered with dust.
Mr. Penfellow was bowing to Hugh.
"The—ah—space next your grandfather, I suppose?"
Hugh nodded dumbly, and the men carrying the casket shifted it gently into the niche adjoining the twenty-eighth baron's. Once they had set it in place, we were at some difficulty to distinguish it from those above and on either side of it. They were all exactly alike. And how different, probably, had been the men and women they held!
Hugh stumbled forward, and knelt beneath his uncle's casket. Nikka, beside me, breathed hastily in my ear:
"I can't stand this, Jack. How can people be buried in stone vaults? I'm choking."
Without waiting for a reply, he slipped away between the pillars, and I was left alone with Mr. Penfellow. The verger was just shepherding the pall-bearers through the gate.
"A very sad chapter in the glorious history of this ancient family, Mr. Nash," murmured the vicar with moist eyes. "But surely no man could hope for a grander Valhalla."
He gestured toward the encircling tombs.
"All of the line since Elizabethan times. That is, all the lords and their ladies. Cadets and collaterals are buried elsewhere in the church. Have you heard the story of Lady Jane Chesby, the builder of this chamber? Ah! Very interesting, is it not? Her own husband was lost at sea, you know. But here is an empty tomb she reared to him."
He led me to the handsomest sarcophagus in the center of the chamber. On the marble lid was carved life-size the effigy of a man in half-armor, sea-boots and morion. In his hands, clasped upon his breast, he grasped a sextant.
The lettering of the inscription on the side I hastily deciphered as:
inscription
"James Matthew Kymmer, Baron ChesbyHereditarie Rangare of Crowdene Wood,Admirall of ye Queene's Gracious Majestie,Scourge of ye Spaniards and all Papists andInfidells, Lost at Sea anno apud. 1590
And underneath this;
inscription
"Deere Lord, I, that was yr Bedfellowe,do reare thys thatte yf yt please Godde so to doand Hee bringe You to my Side there shal notLacke a Space."
"The famous Lady Jane rests under the adjoining sarcophagus with the plain lid," continued the Vicar. "I wish we might find the old crypt. It is somewhere under the Priory grounds but she concealed it very effectually. The tradition is that the old lords were buried in their mail. They were all noted as warriors. Ah, Lord Chesby," as Hugh rose and walked over to us. "This has been very sad, very sad, indeed. And yet, as I was saying to Mr. Nash, it is something for a man after he dies to be brought back to wait the Last Trump in such glorious company."
"I am afraid I have been thinking of the criminals who murdered my uncle," said Hugh curtly. "You have been very kind, sir. I should like to thank you and everybody else for what they have done. Where's Nikka, Jack? Gone up? Do you mind if we leave you to shut the vault, Mr. Penfellow? Thank you again."
He hooked his arm in mine, and together we passed out of that sepulchral chamber, with its great company of illustrious dead. Upstairs in the church porch Nikka was awaiting us, breathing in deep gusts of the air that blew in tinctured with the perfume of Crowden Forest that stretched all around the village.
"I'm sorry, Hugh," he exclaimed, taking Hugh's other arm, "I couldn't wait. There's something in me that rebels against your churches. I feel the same way about mosques and synagogues, for that matter. And as for being buried down in a close, stone-lined hole in the ground, herded in with other dead!" He shivered violently. "I hope not! If there is a God—and there must be some kind of one to make the trees and hills and the grass and to put music in one's heart—why, I pray to Him that I shall lie on a hillside, with only the trees around me and the sun beating down."
Hugh smiled.
"Each to his own, Nikka. You are a Gypsy, a son of the open road. I am an Englishman, son to these stone walls, that old house we came from. I cannot get away from it. I am bound up with them. So long as they and I last we shall be indivisible."
"And what am I?" I demanded lightly.
"You? You are an American. The world is your oyster. You can be satisfied in any way, in Nikka's way or in mine."
It was a scant ten minutes' walk through the park to Castle Chesby. As we entered the drive, Watkins, who had driven back with the servants, came around the house from the stables and started to run toward us.
"Somebody broke in whilst we were at church, your ludship," he panted when he was within earshot.
We were all startled.
"Anything missing?" questioned Hugh sharply.
"I can't say as yet, your ludship. They seem to 'ave been only in the unoccupied parts. I fancy, sir, they 'adn't the time to go through the West Wing."
We hastened into the house after him. A rear door in the center of the castle—it was really more of a manor than a castle in style—had been forced. Desks, wardrobes, chests of drawers, closets, armories, every corner or piece of furniture that might conceal anything had been thoroughly ransacked. Drawers and their contents were still piled helter-skelter on the floor.
"Do you suppose they could have found anything?" I asked.
Watkins shook his head positively.
"I am sure they could not, Mr. Nash, sir. I think I know most of the stuff that they have gone through. Oh, in a very general way, your ludship, to be sure. But I am sure 'is late ludship was not in the 'abit of keeping anything he was precious of in the East Wing or the Main 'Ouse, sir."
We left Watkins to supervise the servants in reëstablishing order in the upset rooms, and returned to the West Wing. In the Gunroom, Hugh lit a cigarette and straddled his legs in front of the fire. Nikka and I dropped into the lounge that faced the hearth.
"Well?" said Hugh, and his lips had resumed the grim line I had noticed in church.
"Who are they?" I suggested.
"Good idea," approved Hugh, and he rang the bell by the door.
Watkins arrived with the celerity of a djin.
"Watty, I wish you'd make inquiries along the roads, and find out if any strangers have been seen around the place this morning. Oh, yes, and tell the servants not to talk. You understand? Not to talk. The man or woman who talks is to be dismissed."
"That was another good idea," said Nikka. "Our best bet is to keep our mouths shut. They, whoever, they are, have us guessing. Maybe we can make them guess a little. And that reminds me, do you realize that they have saved us quite a bit of searching?"
"You mean in turning two-thirds of the house upside down?" answered Hugh.
"Just that. And I'd suggest that we waste no time in going thoroughly over this wing, ourselves."
We set to work with gusto. On my suggestion—they nominated me captain in this enterprise because of my supposed architectural knowledge—we commenced with the Gunroom. We examined it from end to end, tapped the paneling for secret recesses, examined the furniture. No result.
After luncheon, we began on the upper floor and went over the entire wing in detail. We measured the different rooms. I even took outer measurements. We studied chimneys. We sounded floors. We took to pieces every article of furniture which might have concealed a secret drawer—and we found several hidden receptacles, by the way, but they contained nothing beyond ordinary family letters and trash. Immersed in the hunt and baffled by lack of success, we caused Watkins to put off dinner, and worked on until after nine o'clock. Still no success.
We went to bed that night, tired out and disgusted. But in the morning we arose with sharpened interest and determined to canvas the possibilities in the parts of the house the invaders had searched. Again we took careful measurements, inside and out. Again we sounded paneling, investigated recesses and chimney spaces. We hunted for two days. Then we went back, and reëxamined the West Wing a second time. We ended up in stark disappointment in the Gunroom.
"Damn it all!" ripped Hugh. "The trouble is that my family were not Catholics in the times when priests were proscribed, and every self-respecting Catholic family had its Priest's Hole."
"I'm not worried just because your family can't boast an accessible hiding-place," I retorted. "What bothers me is that their hiding-place, if they have one, is so cunningly hidden that we can't find it."
"'If they have one,'" repeated Hugh. "You may well say that! I am beginning to believe we may be on a wild goose chase, after all.'
"If we were the only ones after it, I might think so," I replied.
Nikka, who had relapsed into one of his frequent spells of silent contemplation, jumped suddenly from his chair.
"If it is here, it is in this room," he said.
"Is that a Gypsy prophecy?" jeered Hugh.
There was a racket of motors outside in the drive, and Watkins appeared in the doorway.
"Pardon, your ludship. But I thought you would wish to know Mr. Hilyer and 'is party 'ave just driven up.'
"The devil they have!" exclaimed Hugh. "I suppose we'll have to see 'em."
But Watkins lingered in the doorway.
"What is it?"
Watkins cleared his throat.
"You may remember you instructed me to inquire if strangers 'ad been seen on the roads 'ereabouts the morning of the funeral, your ludship."
Hugh nodded.
"Mrs. Dobson at the Lodge said nobody passed on the village road, your ludship. And I made other inquiries, but without success until I met 'Iggins, the carpenter, sir, this morning. 'E said one of Mr. Hilyer's motors passed on the London road close on noon, but that was all."
"Well, that doesn't help any," said Hugh. "Whoever did it must have taken to the woods and cut across to the Channel road."
"They need only 'ave dropped over the park wall to reach the London Road, your ludship," suggested Watkins.
"Oh, I see your point," agreed Hugh. "Then Hilyer's people might have seen them. I'll find an opportunity to speak to him about it.'
"Thank you, your ludship."
And Watkins withdrew.
"Mr. and Mrs. Hilyer, your ludship!"
And never in my life have I seen anything more splendid than the emotionless disapproval with which Watkins was able to invest his countenance as he announced our callers.
Hilyer was a lean, rangy chap, with a hatchet face and close-set eyes. His mustache was waxed in the Continental fashion, and he had slim, powerful hands, the hands of a born horseman and gambler. He looked what he was: good blood gone wrong.
His wife was a handsome, statuesque woman, awfully well turned out. She was absolutely in the mode, as perfect as a show-girl in a Gayety production. And she had cold eyes that saw everything, and never lost their icy glitter even when her manner was warmest.
"Hullo, Hugh!" exclaimed Hilyer. "Frightfully glad to see you home again, but rotten sorry for the occasion. You don't know Mrs. Hilyer, I believe."
Hugh bowed to her with cold precision.
"Thanks, Hilyer—" just a shade of emphasis on the family name—"it was kind of you to come. We are keeping bachelors' hall, Mrs. Hilyer, and I am afraid our entertaining resources are limited."
"Don't let that bother you," protested Mrs. Hilyer affably, "and if you and your friends want any lively diversion on the quiet, remember we keep liberty hall over at Little Depping. We wanted our—"
But I lost the thread of her conversation as I found myself staring into those same evil green eyes that I had seen peering out of the shadows of the Hilyer pew the morning of the funeral. The man they belonged to had entered the room immediately after the Hilyers. He would have challenged attention in any company with his amazing personality, the strange force that radiated from him. He had the long arms, short, thick legs and enormous body of a gorilla, capped by a beautifully-modeled head. His forehead was high; his clean-shaven face was very white; his jaw was square, without being prognathous. But his eyes were his outstanding feature. They were large and vividly green like a cat's.
The man baffled you. The expression of his face was dreamy, preoccupied. He had the appearance of a thinker, a recluse. But underneath his outward seeming I sensed another self, lurking as if in ambush. He was handsome in an intellectual way. Yet I found him repulsive.
Hilyer, undeterred by Hugh's frosty greeting, dropped his hand on this man's shoulder, and began introducing him. I noticed that the Englishman let his hand lie there only a minute, and then almost snatched it away.
"Signor Teodoreschi, gentlemen! The Italian chemist. And my other friends, Countess Sandra Yassilievna and Count Serge Vassilievich! I ought to explain they are brother and sister!"
This last with a well-bred leer.
"And Hilmi Bey, gentlemen! If you knew your Levant, you would recognize him without introduction."
I saw Nikka shift his attention at this from the two Russians to the Levantine, an olive-skinned individual, good-looking in a portly way, with a predatory beaked nose, effeminate eyes and a sensual mouth.
"You see we're rather an international crowd—what?" Mrs. Hilyer was drawling. "Matter of fact, Lord Chesby, we might muster another race or two."
"Very interesting, I'm sure," said Hugh, cold as ever. "You won't mind if I present my friends to you as a group? Thanks. This is Mr. Zaranko—and Mr. Nash."
"Not Mr. Nikka Zaranko?" exclaimed Mrs. Hilyer. "Oh, I say, it is a treat to meet you! How wonderfully you play!"
And she wrenched Nikka away from his obvious intent to probe the Levantine, and carried him off to a corner, along with Vassilievich, a slim-waisted, old-young man, with a hard, dissipated face. Hilmi, after a look around, joined the gorilla-like Italian, who was turning the pages of a review on the table, with occasional flashing glances about the room. Montey Hilyer was volubly describing the prospects of the racing season to Hugh, and I was left by process of elimination to entertain the Countess Sandra Yassilievna.
I think both Hugh and Nikka envied me the chance. She was a dark girl, with great, sleepy, almond-shaped eyes and a sinuous, willowy figure.
"You're an American, aren't you?" she said with a very slight accent. "How do you happen to know Lord Chesby?"
I explained to her.
"He went to New York to earn his living! Ah, that is an old story, Mr. Nash. Look at my brother and me! Exiles! Forced to turn our hands to whatever we can do. The Old World is a sad place these days."
I felt like telling her that I didn't believe it would hurt her sort to do a little work, but instead I asked her what she did do.
"Oh, anything," she replied evasively. "Secretarial work when I can get it. And you? What shall you and your friends do now? But I suppose you will help Lord Chesby enjoy the life of an English country gentleman."
"For a while, yes," I agreed.
"And then?"
"I don't know. America, I suppose. One must earn a living."
"So you would leave him—Lord Chesby, I mean?"
I began to have a disagreeable feeling that I was being pumped.
"I can't stay here forever, you know," I retorted.
"Ah, but of course! And Lord Chesby? Will he marry an heiress, an American, perhaps? But no! He does not need money, they say."
"'They say' a great many things," I commented.
"It may be he did ill to leave America," she suggested. "One is so safe there. In Europe, who can say what the future holds? Russia is chaos. Turkey torn by war. Eastern Europe boiling. Germany thirsting for vengeance. Ah? Mr. Nash, were I an American I should stay at home."
"That sounds almost like a threat," I laughed.
"God forbid!" she ejaculated with true Russian piety. "It is that I envy you your security. All Serge and I can do is to wait and plot and plot and wait."
"Are you staying in England?" I asked.
"Only temporarily. We shall be in Paris shortly. Perhaps you would care to call when you—"
"I haven't any present intention of going to Paris," I cut in.
"I can't believe you," she replied. "Don't all good Americans expect to go to Paris when they die? Perhaps you will travel elsewhere, no?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"You Americans are so venturesome," she sighed. "One never really knew you as a people until the War."
I happened to look up at that moment, and surprised the Italian in one of his lightning surveys of the room.
"Your friend there seems exclusive," I remarked.
"Oh, he?" she said hastily. "He speaks no English, and he is sensitive about it. He talks little in any case. These scientists, you know."
Hilmi Bey left the Italian's side, and sauntered over to us.
"A beautiful old room," he said. "Has it any history?"
"It's the oldest part of the present building," I told him. "I understand it represents a reconstruction during Elizabeth's reign."
"Ah! Faultless taste, isn't?" He swung around on me. "They tell me you are an architect. You must appreciate such a good job."
The fellow spoke very pleasantly, and yet there was something about him that aroused in me a continual desire to punch his face.
"You can't beat the old people who worked slowly and lovingly," I answered, forcing myself to be civil.
"That is a gorgeous fireplace," said the Countess.
"Ah, yes," he agreed, with his absurdly broad pronunciation. "Rather a quaint verse there, too, I see. How does it run?"
He picked it out slowly, with some help from the Russian girl.
Lady Jane's verse
Whenne thatte ye Pappist ChurchmanneWoulde seke Hys Soul's contenteHe tookened up ye Wysshinge StoneAnd trode ye Prior's Vent.
"Deuced odd! What does it all mean?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," I said. "Nor has anybody else. It seems like a gratuitous slap at a certain religion, and as the author of the lines was noted for her religious bias, that is probably as good an explanation as any other."
Our conversation had attracted the attention of the others, and Mrs. Hilyer drew Nikka and the Count in front of the chimney-piece.
"You don't suppose there could be some secret meaning to those words, do you?" she asked.
"I wish you'd pick it out for me," I countered.
That was a query I had often put to myself.
"A key to something else, you know," she went on. "Our ancestors were fond of that sort of thing. They loved mystery, and life wasn't as safe in those days as it is in ours.'
"It's perfectly thrilling," cried the Countess. "This is just the kind of room to house some wonderful secret—or perhaps a tragedy."
"At any rate, her meaning is successfully concealed," I said. "Always supposing she had a meaning."
I felt something behind me, and turned my head. The Italian had left the table in the center of the room and moved up to the fringe of our group. His green eyes, flaring with an uncanny vital force, were intent upon the rhyme on the overmantel.
"Humph," I thought to myself, "you may not be able to speak English, but you appear to be able to read it."
He growled something in an undertone to Mrs. Hilyer, and she nodded.
"Fascinating as your room is, I am afraid we must leave you, Lord Chesby," she called over to Hugh. "Signor Teodoreschi had just reminded me we have to put him on the London train before we drive home."
"I'll have your motors called up," returned Hugh impassively, as he and Hilyer joined the rest of us.
He rang and gave the necessary orders to Watkins.
"You really must come over and have a bit of bridge with us," Mrs. Hilyer bowled along merrily. "Of course, I know you are in mourning, but even so, you ought not to deny yourself all pleasure. Any evening at all. Do make it soon. So glad to have met you, Mr. Zaranko. I can't tell you how sorry I am you won't play for us. Mr. Nash, I've hardly had a word with you, but we'll better that over at Little Depping, won't we?"
The Countess extended her hand to me.
"I hope you will accept Mrs. Hilyer's invitation," she said, her eyes glowing softly. "It's such a pleasure to meet Americans. I'd love to ride with you one day this week."
"I'll ring you up," I prevaricated, feeling very much like doing it, if the truth be known—she had a way with her, that girl.
"And don't forget that tip on Krugersdorp for the St. Leger," I heard Hilyer insist to Hugh. "I'm not so sure about the Derby. When you run over to see us, I'll let you have a look at a sweet little filly I'm grooming for steeplechase work. You aren't takin' on any hunters, are you? I've—"
"By the way," Hugh interrupted. "I meant to ask you: did any of your people see strangers around here the morning of my uncle's funeral?"
I was amazed at the sudden silence that gripped the room. The Italian, Teodoreschi, already in the doorway after a curt nod of farewell, stopped dead and stared hard at Hugh.
"You see," Hugh continued, "I heard one of your cars was seen on the London Road in back of the park, and if—"
"But, my dear fellow," exclaimed Hilyer, "what's the trouble? There are always strangers passing through Chesby. You've got two trunk highways, remember."
"Quite so," agreed Hugh. "But I'm anxious to know whether any strangers were seen that morning, especially strangers on foot."
"Not that we've heard of," responded Mrs. Hilyer promptly. "All of us were at the funeral. And if the servants had noticed anything queer, I'm sure they would have reported it to me."
"Thanks," said Hugh. "Would it be too much trouble for you to inquire of them, just the same?"
"Not at all. D'you mind telling us what happened?"
The whole company crowded closer.
"Oh, nothing much," answered Hugh deliberately, "except we had reason to suppose the house had been entered."
"Great Scott!" protested Hilyer. "That's a go. We've never had anything like that before in the County. But with so many men out of work, and the unrest and whatnot, I suppose it's no more than to be expected."
"Did you lose anything, Lord Chesby?" inquired Hilmi Bey.
"I think not."
The Countess Sandra Vassilievna permitted an artistic shudder to undulate her figure.
"Bozhe moi, Maude!" she cried. "Do you bring us into your rural England to risk death from burglars? I prefer the Bolshevists."
Several people laughed.
"All the same, it's no joke," answered Mrs. Hilyer. "Thanks for the warning, Lord Chesby. We'll let the dogs loose around the house after this at night."
Teodoreschi, still standing in the doorway, rasped a single sentence, and passed out. The others flocked after him like hounds over whom the huntsman cracks his whip. Mrs. Hilyer and the Countess waved a last good-by, and Watkins closed the door on them.
Nikka and I looked at one another, and burst out laughing. Hugh, with a muffled curse, threw up the nearest window.
"Let's have some fresh air," he said. "That scoundrel Montey Hilyer makes me feel dirty. He and his tips! And we must come over and play bridge! Yes, and roulette, too, I suppose, with a wired wheel. I say, you two, do I look like such an utter ass?"
"They were a queer crowd," I admitted. "That countess wasn't bad-looking, though."
"I noticed you stuck to her," insinuated Hugh.
"Nonsense, she singled me out. I think she was trying to pump me."
"Well, Hilyer didn't ask me any questions, I'm bound to say," returned Hugh. "He was too busy with his beastly gambling anecdotes, and crooked dope. What did you make out of them, Nikka?"'
Nikka lit a cigarette before he replied.
"I think they are a party of polite thieves," he answered at last. "At least, some of them. The Italian I made nothing of."
"He didn't talk any," said Hugh.
"They said he couldn't speak English," I put in.
"You didn't notice, then, that he was listening to everything that was said," observed Nikka.
"No, but I saw him read the rhyme up there over the fireplace. He gave me the shakes."
"Who was the Bey person?" inquired Hugh.
Nikka's lip curled.
"That fellaheen cur! I know the breed. They live by graft and worse. If we go to Paris I think I shall make inquiries about some of them. I know persons at the Prefecture of Police who ought to have their dossiers."
We fell silent, as Watkins, the company out of the way, brought in tea.
"How did they get on the subject of that verse of Lady Jane's?" demanded Hugh suddenly.
"It was the countess and Mrs. Hilyer," I explained. "They saw it, and insisted on reading some hidden meaning into it."
As I spoke I looked up again at the overmantel where the Gothic characters showed dimly in the light from the smoldering logs and the rays of the sunset. I conned over the four lines deliberately. "Ye Prior's Vent." The last three words seemed to jump out at me. "Some secret meaning.... A key to something else, you know." Mrs. Hilyer's phrases reëchoed in my brain. I studied the rhyme a second time.
"Hugh," I said suddenly, "d'you happen to have with you the copy of that other verse of Lady Jane's?"
He produced it from his pocketbook, without speaking. We had read over the copy of the Instructions a score of time since our arrival at Chesby, but none of us had recurred to Lady Jane's whimsical effort.
I spread the copy before me:
Putte downe ye Anciount riddelIn Decente, Seemelie ordour.Rouse, O ye mystick Sybil,Vex Hymme who doth Endeavour,Nor treate Hys effortte tendour.
And in the winking of an eyelid the cipher leaped out before me. I did not reason it out. It just came to me—when I saw the VE in the next to the last line, I think.
"I've got it!" I shouted, and I sprang up and danced across the hearth, waving the paper in my hand. "I've got it!"
Hugh and Nikka regarded me in astonishment.
"Got what, you silly ass?" asked Hugh.
"It—the secret! The key! The cipher! The treas—"
But even as I started to say that, I thought better of it.
"No, that's going too far," I panted, breaking off in my mad dance. "I've got something, but how much it means is another matter."
Hugh pulled me down beside them.
"Talk sense, Jack," he ordered. "Show us your—"
"Here!" I shoved the copy of Lady Jane's doggerel in front of him and Nikka. "Now watch!"
I took a pencil and drew it through all except the first letters of the first and last words in each line. So:
verse with scratched-out words
The result, of course, was:
P rI oR SV EN t
"Prior's Vent!" gasped Nikka. "Hehasfound something!"
And his eyes, too, sought the verse carved on the over-mantel.
"Up there, too! It can mean only one thing."
"That the secret to the location of the treasure is in the Prior's Vent!" I added triumphantly.
"Or can be reached through the Prior's Vent," amended Nikka.
Hugh, who had been in a brown study, aroused himself, and peered at the mass of the fireplace.
"I'm not trying to belittle Jack's discovery," he said slowly, "but you chaps must remember that we don't know where or what the Prior's Vent is."
"Except that you may take it for certain it is in this room," replied Nikka.
"And that perhaps the fireplace has something to do with it," I suggested.
Hugh shook his head.
"No, no, Jack, that won't wash. You, yourself, have measured that chimney area, and we all agreed there wasn't space inside it for a secret chamber. If I thought there was, I'd tear it down.'
"Hold on," counseled Nikka. "Easy does it. For the first time we've got something to go upon. Let's chew it over for a while, and see what we can make of it."
We chewed it over until bedtime without reaching any decision.
It was a long time before I went to sleep. Lady Jane's cipher and its inconclusive information kept buzzing through my head. But at last I dozed off and dreamed of fat monks who popped out of a round hole in a courtyard in endless succession until one of their number, stouter than the rest, became wedged in the opening. He babbled profanely in Latin, and I started to go to his aid—and waked up.
The night was very dark, and there was not even a hint of starshine to light the room. A dog was barking on the Home Farm just outside the park enclosure, but not another sound broke the silence. I rolled over, and shut my eyes, and promptly sat up in bed. I thought I had heard another sound. What it was I could not say. It was very faint, a gentle burring rip.
I swung out of bed, reached for a candle, thought better of it, and crossed to the door communicating with Hugh's room. It was ajar, and as I poked my head in, I could hear his gentle breathing. Nikka's room, beyond his, was quiet. Outside of us three, only Watkins slept in that part of the house. The servants' quarters were in the rear over the kitchens.
My first instinct was to laugh at myself, but I opened the door from my room into the hall and listened there. At first, I heard nothing. Then it seemed to me that I detected a creaking, as of subdued footfalls. I strained my faculties in tense concentration, but the creaking was not repeated, and I began to believe that my imagination was playing tricks with me.
To make sure, I crossed the hall in my bare feet, and listened at Watkins's door. Watkins, I regret to say, snored quite audibly, and I was inclined to suspect that he had been responsible for arousing me. But I could not quell the uneasiness which possessed me. I started to call Hugh and Nikka, and stopped with my hand raised to knock on Nikka's door. It would be a fool stunt to wake them for nothing but my own fancies.
After a moment's further hesitation, I crept downstairs into the entrance hall, groping my way in the pitch darkness. Feeling more than ever like a fool, I looked into the dining room and music room. I had just stepped back into the hall when a chink of light shone out of the short passage that led from the hall into the Gunroom. It flickered away, and returned.
Wishing now that I had taken the automatic that lay on the table beside my bed, I stole into the Gunroom passage. I still thought I might have to deal with one of the servants. In fact, I didn't think very much of anything, except the necessity of discovering the identity of the intruder.
The door of the Gunroom opened into the passage. It was ajar, but not sufficiently to permit me to see inside. I drew it cautiously toward me. The chink of light was more pronounced. A brief mutter of voices, hoarse and restrained, reached my ears. As the crack widened, I adjusted my eye to the opening and peered in.
The Gunroom was a pool of shadows, save only in front of the fireplace, where a single ray of light played upon a preposterous figure crouched on the mantle-shelf. The light came from an electric torch in the hand of a second figure outlined against the dying coals of the woodfire on the hearth. They mumbled back and forth to each other, and now I caught once more the faint noise like the prolonged ripping of tough cloth which had attracted my attention upstairs.
The light flashed on steel, and I realized that the figure on the mantle-shelf was working with a small saw on the panel of the over-mantle containing Lady Jane's verse. As I watched, he suspended his efforts and barked impatiently at his assistant. The ray of light quivered and shifted upward. For a fleeting section of a second it traversed the figure on the mantle-shelf and focussed momentarily on his head and shoulders.
I gasped. The figure on the mantle-shelf was Professor Teodoreschi, the Italian chemist who had accompanied the Hilyer's party. There was no mistaking the tremendous shoulders, the long ape-arms, the pallid face, with its high forehead and heavy jaw. He wore the same costume of shooting-coat and knickerbockers that he had had on in the afternoon.
In my amazement my hand tightened involuntarily its grip on the door, which swung out past me with a loud groan. Another beam of light flashed from the shadows close by, focussed on me and snapped off.
"Amerikansky!" cried a man's voice.
I heard him leap through the litter of furniture, and dimly saw him fling his torch at me. It crashed against the door, and I snatched up a chair, stooped low and lashed at his legs. He tumbled in a heap.
"Hugh! Nikka!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.
I had my hands full on the instant. The man who had flung the torch at me was already scrambling to his feet. The gorilla-like Italian had jumped from the mantle-shelf with the alert energy of a big cat. He and the man who had been helping him were now dodging towards me.
"Ne tirez pas!" hissed Teodoreschi in throaty accents that were vaguely familiar. "Percez! Attende, Serge, Vlada!Percez! Poignardez!"
The Italian's helper reached me first. I saw his knife in his hand, and struck out with my fist. Being a knife-fighter, it was what he least expected, and he went over. I ran behind the large center table, and as the Italian and the other man closed in, I reared it on end and toppled it at them. They jumped apart, and I found opportunity to heave another chair at the chap I had just knocked down.
But I was in for a bad time. Teodoreschi and the man who had first rushed me were ugly customers. I evaded them, slipped behind the couch that stood in front of the fireplace and tried to make for the window. They headed me off, and I drove a right hook to the jaw of my original foe that sent him reeling. Then the Italian was on me like a human juggernaut. He swept aside my blows as though they were harmless, folded me in his great arms and tossed me from him. I spun across the hearth into the fireplace, and brought up on all-fours in the ashes.
Every tooth in my head was jarred by the crash, but I had no time to think of pain. I heard the guttural snarl of the gorilla-man behind me, and looked up to see his knife descending in a stab that was aimed inside my collarbone. Desperate, I threw myself backward against his legs, and he fell on the couch. Yet he was up again in an instant, and chopping at me, with foam dripping from his lips.
I had to run, and as I ran, I kicked the fire-irons in his way. They tripped him and his knife went hurtling across the room into a bookcase. But I could not escape. His companions herded me back towards him, and presently I was battling to avoid his clutch. Once within his reach, I was helpless as a child.
His arms wrapped me like cables; his wicked green eyes blazed at me with insane ferocity; his teeth gnashed at my throat. And his two friends hovered near, watching for an opportunity to finish me with their knives.
Then I heard feet pattering in the hall, a cry of encouragement. I summoned all my strength for one last struggle.
"Shoot! Hugh! Nikka! Shoot!" I yelled.
Teodoreschi lifted me from my feet, and turned me face upward in his arms. I honestly think he meant to gnaw through my throat. His pallid cheeks gleamed with sweat. His eyes were utterly inhuman. His mouth dribbled saliva. But an automatic cracked in the doorway, and was followed by a choking cry. He hesitated, glaring down at me, and I could almost see the human intelligence returning to his face. There were two more shots, and he slammed me on the floor, with a barking screech of defiance.
The next thing I remember was Hugh pouring raw Scotch whiskey down my throat—and how good it tasted.
"Did you get him?" I stammered.
"We got one fellow," answered Hugh grimly. "Or I should say, Nikka did."
I staggered to my feet with Hugh's arm around me. In the doorway I saw Watkins, a nightshirt flapping around his calves, forcing back a motley group of servants. Nikka had picked up the electric torch which had been flung at me, and was examining by its light the body of a man that lay between the couch and the fireplace.
As Watkins closed the door, Nikka beckoned to him.
"Did they see this?" he asked shortly, pointing to the body.
"No, sir. None of them got inside, and it's quite impossible to see be'ind the couch 'ere, sir."
"Good! Oh, Hugh!" Nikka turned to us. "Hello, Jack! Do you feel yourself again?"
"I'm right as can be," I insisted, which was the truth. "Nothing bothered me, except having the wind squeezed out of me by that gorilla."
"What gorilla?"
"The Italian—Teodoresehi."
"Oh, was he in it?"
Hugh and Nikka exchanged glances.
"Well, take a look at this fellow," suggested Nikka.
He switched the torch on the body by the hearth. There was a red splotch over the heart. The right hand still clutched convulsively a long knife, with a slight curve near the keen point of the blade. The light settled on a dark, thin, hooknosed face.
"Ever seen him before?" inquired Hugh.
"No," I admitted regretfully.
"Oh, Watty!" called Hugh.
"Yes, your ludship."
Watkins maintained all his usual dignity of demeanor, notwithstanding that he was in his nightshirt and bare feet, with a snuffed-out candle in one hand and an automatic in the other.
"Ever seen this man before?"
Watkins stooped, and almost instantly jerked erect.
"It's 'im, your ludship! It's the man that told us 'e came from you. On theAquitania, sir! A just and 'Eavenly punishment, indeed, your ludship!"
"I'll take a little credit for it, if you don't mind," said Nikka, grinning.
"Jack, did you recognize the third man?"
I shook my head.
"The Italian was the only one whose face I saw.'
"Well, I had a glimpse of Number Three as he escaladed through the window after Teodoreschi—I'll take your word for the Italian! He—Number Three, I mean—looked very much like the Russian, the brother of that Countess you were so smitten with."
"I wasn't smitten with her," I denied indignantly. "Here, Hugh, don't drink all that whiskey."
"I like your nerve," he retorted. "Didn't I pour a quarter of the bottle down your throat?"
"Be that as it may," I went on when he had surrendered it, "I shouldn't be surprised if Number Three was the Count. Now I think of it, the Italian called 'Serge!' when they first jumped me.'
"That would be right, then," agreed Nikka. "Did he call this carrion anything?"
He touched the dead man with his foot.
"He called 'Vlada!' at the same time."
"That sounds reasonable, too," said Nikka, deep in thought.
"Why?"
"The man is a—what you would call a countryman of mine. He is a Gypsy. I tell you, my friends—"
He broke off, and stared down at the body on the floor.
"What?" asked Hugh.
"Why, this. Our task grows as we draw nearer to it. I have said before that we face a gang of international thieves. But see how their importance swells. Hugh, this man Hilyer—when all is said and done, an English country gentleman, living to outward seeming within the law—is one of them. They have a pair of shady Russian nobles, probably with ex-spy records. We have seen a Levantine financier with them. We know they have powerful connections in America. We know they have access to the criminal organization of the Gypsies. We have seen an Italian scientist—"
"He's no more Italian than you are," I interrupted. "He may be a scientist, but he's French."
"Who is he, then?" asked Nikka placidly.
"He is that same Toutou Hugh's uncle spoke of."
Hugh leaped up.
"How do you know that, Jack?"
"I just know, that's all. Yesterday afternoon I saw him, although I did not recognize him, as he normally is. He's fearsome enough in that mood, God knows! Well, a few minutes ago I saw him blood-crazed. He wanted to bite my throat out like a tiger. Oh, he's Toutou, all right."
Hugh's face grew bitter-hard.
"In that case," he said, "I am going to drive over to Little Depping, and do a bit of killing on my own."
Watkins, without a word, deposited his snuffed candle on the mantel-shelf next an open kit of burglar's tools, and stepped up beside his master.
"You can't do that sort of thing, Hugh," I urged.
"Why not? He's a murderer, isn't he? He killed my uncle—butchered the poor old chap! D'you suppose Hilyer would dare to complain to the police?"
"What you say is right enough, Hugh," said Nikka quietly, "but you forget that Hilyer's gang are hardly the kind to give up without a fight, especially when the man you want is their leader. Also, I fancy you under-rate your enemies' intelligence, if you suppose Toutou or Teodoreschi or whatever his name is will return to Little Depping."
"They prepared an alibi for him when they were here," I cried. "Don't you remember? When they were leaving, Mrs. Hilyer said that they had to put him on the London train before they drove home."
"And you can depend upon it that he took the train," added Nikka. "He probably dropped off at another station, and they met him with a car."
Hugh sat down gloomily.
"I suppose you are right," he admitted. "But I should like to shoot the swine."
"You are very likely to have the opportunity," Nikka comforted him. "That is, supposing you shoot first. Now, see here, you chaps, what are we going to do with this fellow I shot? We can't have any publicity, and while you may persuade servants not to talk about an ordinary burglary, you can't hush them up if it includes a killing."
"What's your suggestion?" asked Hugh.
"Remove him secretly, and tell the servants that nothing is missing and we don't want the affair talked about."
"The idea is good," assented Hugh. "I'm not anxious to have any more sensational interest attached to me, But what can you do with him? The body is in this room. It's got to be taken out. You can't bury a body without digging a grave. That means leaving a trace. Suppose some one should see us or suppose some one should find the grave and investigate. Mind you, old top, whatever our motives, we are violating the law if we don't report the man's death."
"There may be a way out of your difficulty," I remarked.
"What is it?"
"Use the Prior's Vent."
They both looked at me as if I had gone mad. Even Watkins regarded me with stern disapproval.
"What are you talking about?" demanded Nikka.
"This is serious," reproved Hugh. "Just because you find a silly cipher—"
"I am serious," I insisted. "This has been an eventful evening. Among other things, I think I have found the Prior's Vent."
Hugh shook his head sadly.
"There's been too much talk of secrets," he said. "Watty, go and ring up Dr. North. He must have hurt his head in that mix-up."