She flung herself forward, but she was too late. The panel had closed, and she was in utter darkness.
In the terror of finding herself a prisoner she lost her head, and shrieked for her brother, beating wildly on the back of the panel, trying to tear it open. She only succeeded in breaking a finger-nail, and her panic grew.
She screamed, "Help! help! Peter, Peter, Peter!"
Somewhere below her she heard a soft, padding step, and the hush of a robe brushing against the wall. Like a mad woman she clawed at the panel. "Quick! oh quick! Peter, help!"
Then in the darkness a gloved hand stole across her mouth, and an arm in a wide sleeve was round her, holding her in a vice.
She tried to break free, to jerk her head away, but her arms were clamped to her sides and that horrible, gloved hand was like a gag over her mouth.
She felt herself slipping into unconsciousness, and through the sudden roaring in her ears she heard as though from a great distance Peter's voice calling: "Margaret, what is it? Where are you?"
A low, inhuman chuckle sounded immediately above her head, and there was something so gloating and fiendish in that soft sound that terror such as she had never known seized her. Then the waves met over her head and she fainted.
Chapter Fifteen
As he came into the hall from the servants' wing Peter heard Margaret's scream. It sounded muffled, but he heard her shriek his name, and crossed the hall in three bounds.
"Margaret, what is it?" he cried. "Where are you? Margaret! Margaret!"
The room was empty, and no answering call came to him. He stared round, then sprang instinctively to the window, only to find that the falling bolt was as he had left it, just holding the double windows together. She could not have gone that way, and hardly knowing what he did he tore the curtains apart and dragged the big leather screen aside. But she was not in the room. Yet a moment before he had heard her voice coming from this direction: she could not have gone far!
"Think! think!" drummed his brain. "Don't lose your head! Think!"
He came back into the middle of the room, and as he once more glared round for some clue to her whereabouts his eye caught sight of a crumpled handkerchief lying near the wall beside the fireplace. Quickly he crossed to where it lay, and picked it up. It was one of the flimsy scraps of crepe-de-chine she always used; he had returned it to her twice already this evening, for she invariably dropped it about.
His thoughts raced. She had been sitting on the other side of the fireplace all the evening; if she had dropped her handkerchief here she must for some reason or other have moved to this spot after he had left the room. What could have taken her there? His eyes ran swiftly over that side of the room. Not a book, for the shelves were on the opposite wall; nor the coal-scuttle, for he had taken that away. She must have stepped close up to the wall, too, for the handkerchief had been touching the wainscoting. Light began to break on Peter. She hadn't gone out by the window; she hadn't gone by the door, since when she screamed he had just come back into the hall, and must have seen her had she left the room by that exit. There remained only one solution: somewhere in the room was a secret entrance that they had none of them discovered.
He at once inspected the panelling, and went to the place where the handkerchief had lain, and sounded the panels all along that side of the fireplace. It was hard at first to detect a difference, but by dint of repeated banging on two panels he was almost sure that one had a different, and more hollow note. It was probably padded on the inside to disguise it, he guessed, and he began to feel all round the beading for any catch there might be. Some echo of Margaret's frantic cry still seemed to sound in his ears, and his hands moved with feverish haste over the woodwork. She must have accidentally discovered the moving panel, and then - what had happened? A rather sickening fear stole into him; his fingers tore fruitlessly at the beading; he even set his shoulder to the panel in a vain attempt to break it down. His reason checked him once more. It was no use getting desperate: he must think, and think quickly. How had she discovered the panel? Not by design, that much was certain. By accident it must have been, and what could she have been doing that led her to put her hand on the spring that worked it?
His gaze, searching the room, fell on the fire, which was now burning brightly. Of course! She had been lighting the fire! What a fool he was not to have remembered that earlier! He strode up to the grate, and as he bent to scrutinise it there flashed into his mind the recollection of the rosette that had moved to slide back the panel into the priest's hole at the top of the stairs. If another such hole existed it was almost certain that it was worked by the same sort of device.
He fell on his knees, wrenching and twisting at the carved surround of the grate. It was a garland in a design of apples and pomegranates and leaves. Inch by inch he went over it, his heart sinking as leaf after leaf, fruit after fruit remained immovable under his probing fingers. Then, when only one more cluster remained untested he found the wooden apple that turned, and almost let out a yell of triumph as it slid in his hold.
His eyes were fixed on the panel he suspected, and even as he turned the apple, he saw it glide back to reveal the same dark cavity that had startled Margaret.
He sprang to his feet. His only thought was to get to his sister; even had it entered his head in that moment of anxiety he would not have paused to fetch his revolver, upstairs, locked in a drawer of his dressing-table. Without stopping to consider he was through the aperture, and standing on the first step. "Margaret!" he shouted. "Margaret, Margaret! Where are you?"
There was a faint movement behind him, he started round, but just a second too late. Something struck him a stunning blow on the head, and he fell without a sound, sprawling down the narrow stairs. A moment later a cowled figure moved across the aperture, and then once more the panel slid back into place,, and the library was empty and silent.
Five minutes afterwards Bowers came into the room with the coal-scuttle. He looked round, rather surprised to see no one, but concluded that Peter and Margaret had either strolled out into the moonlight, or were in some other room. He made up the fire, and then went over to draw the curtains. He wondered why they had been pulled aside, for he distinctly remembered drawing them while his young master and mistress were still in the dining-room. As he pulled them together he noticed the position of the double French windows, which though open, had been set so that the falling-bolt just held them together, and prevented them swinging wide into the room. If Peter and Margaret had gone out, it was not by that way. He supposed they must have gone by the front door, perhaps meaning to stroll down the avenue to meet the rest of their party who would soon be returning from their dinner engagement. Funny tastes people had, Bowers reflected. As for him he'd do anything sooner than walk down that avenue after dark."
He began to tidy the room, shaking up cushions, and emptying the ash trays. The screen seemed to be out of place; he adjusted it carefully, and straightened the position of one of the chairs. Glancing at the clock he saw that it was already after ten, and time for him to bring in the usual tray of glasses, whisky decanter, soda-siphon and lemonade. With a final look round the room he went away to the pantry to prepare the tray. By the time he had collected the decanter from the dining-room, and returned to the library, ten minutes had gone by. Since there was still no sign of Peter or Margaret it seemed certain that they must have gone out. In which case, Bowers thought, remembering his friend Flinders' warning, it was very unwise of them to have left the window open. He moved across to it, and not only shut it, but bolted it as well. Then he went back again to the kitchen, where Mrs. Bowers was folding up her crochetwork preparatory to going to bed.