"Yes, I remember thinking in a flash how that was what Duval must have meant when he said the Monk went up and down the stairs though we didn't see. Go on: what happened next?"
She shuddered. "It was so awful… my bangle - you know the one - came undone, and fell on to the second step. I didn't stop to think: I never dreamed - anyone was there. I let go the panel and just stepped down one stair to pick it up." Her fingers clung suddenly to his hand. "Peter, I saw the light going, and I turned round, and the panel was closing! Peter! I nearly went mad! I couldn't stop it, and that's when I screamed. I tried to tear it open; it was pitch dark, and I couldn't see any catch, or feel anything. I shrieked for you again and again. Then - then I heard something moving." She was shaking like a leaf. He put his arm round her, clumsily patting her shoulder. "A sort of padding footstep, coming nearer and nearer. And I couldn't see, couldn't move that awful panel. Then - I felt something creep over my mouth. It felt horrible, horrible! Then I knew it was a hand in a glove. It gripped my face so that I could hardly breathe, and an arm grasped me round above the elbows. I couldn't move, I heard you call out to me from the library, and then - then, there was a fiendish sort of chuckle, quite soft, but so utterly wicked, and cruel, that it just finished me, and I fainted. When I came to I was in this place, quite alone. I didn't know how I got here, or who that hand belonged to - or - or how long I'd been here till the door opened, and I saw the Monk standing there. He didn't speak; he looked at me for a moment through those slits in his cowl, then he turned and bent down and started to drag something in. It was you, Peter, and oh, I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead! He just let you fall on the floor, and went out. I hadn't any water or anything to bring you to. I undid your collar, and when you didn't move, I was so desperate I shrieked for someone to come and at least let me have some water. But no one did and no one answered. Only this awful roaring noise went on."
He lifted his head. "Then there is a noise? It's not just in my head?"
"No, it's never stopped all the time I've been here."
He sat for a few minutes trying to collect his thoughts. "Poor kid!" he said. "Ghastly for you. And a fat lot of good I've been to you!"
She laid her cheek against his arm. "You're here, and that's all I care about. You don't know what it was like to be alone. At least we're together now."
"If only my head didn't ache so much I might be able to think," he said. He looked round, and blinked. "Where the hell are we?" he said. "Electric light?"
She glanced up at the bulb that had caught his attention. "So it is. I haven't had time to notice it till now. Then we can't be in the Priory, can we?"
He got up, and began to move round the small room. It was like a square cave cut out of solid stone, all except the door which was made of thick wood. "No window," he said. "We must be underground." He went to the door, and slipping his hand sideways between two of the bars of the grille, tried to push back the shutter by inserting a finger into one of the ventilation holes. He could not move it, nor could he manage to see anything through the holes.
"If we're underground that accounts for the coldness and the smell of damp," Margaret said. "Peter-you don't think - they're going to leave us here - to starve?"
"Of course not," he said instantly. He stood by the door, listening. "That noise," he said. "That's a machine and an electric one, or I've never heard one!" He stared across at his sister, dawning suspicion in his eyes. He seemed about to speak, then checked himself, and went up to one of the walls, and closely inspected the stone blocks that formed it. "I believe we're under the cellars," he said. "I'm no geologist, but this looks to me exactly the same sort of stone as that one that moved and we sealed up. We are in the Priory!"
"Right under the ground?" she asked. "Below the cellars even?"
"I'm not sure, but I think we must be. The place feels like a tomb, much more so than the cellars did." He looked round again. "Why, what fools we've been not to think of it! Didn't those old monks often have underground passages leading from the monastery to the chapel?"
"Yes, I believe they did," she said. "You think that's where we are? But this is a room!"
"Cut, if I'm not much mistaken, in the foundations of the house. I don't know much about monasteries, but I suppose the monks must have had a use for an underground room or so. Storing valuables in times of stress, and all that sort of thing."
"But the light!" she objected. "There's no electricity at the Priory."
"It must be worked by a plant. Good God!"
"What?" she said quickly.
"At the Bell! That big plant I saw there! But it can't possibly…' He broke off, utterly bewildered.
"Did you see a plant there? You never told me."
"I forgot about it. It was one day when Charles and I were there. I got into the engine-room, and I was just thinking what a ridiculously big machine it was for the work it had to do when Spindle hustled me out. Yes, by Jove, and I wondered at the time why he seemed so upset at finding me there. But Wilkes gave a plausible sort of explanation, and I never thought any more about it. Why, good Lord, do you realise that if I'm right, and it's that plant that produces this light, and works the machine we can hear, Wilkes must be in this, up to the eyes?"
"Wilkes?" she repeated incredulously. "That fat, smiling landlord? He couldn't be!"
"I don't know so much. And that throws a fresh light on it. Strange! He's staying at the Bell. For all we know he and Wilkes are hand in glove over this."
"Oh, no!" she said. "It isn't Michael Strange! It can't be! Not after what he said to me! No, no, I won't believe that!"
He did not press the point. He stood still, listening to the throb and the muffled roar of the machine, trying to think what it could be. The noise it made stirred some chord of memory in his brain. Margaret started to speak, and he signed to her to be quiet, with a quick frown and a finger held up.
Suddenly he remembered. Once, a couple of years before, he had been shown over a model printing works. He swung round, and exclaimed beneath his breath: "Margaret! I believe it's a printing press!"
She waited, searching his face. He seemed to be listening more intently than ever. "I don't see…' she began.
"Forgers!" he said. "I can't see what else it can possibly be - if it is a press."
"Forgers?"
"Probably forgers of bank-notes. I don't know." He came back to the table and sat down on the edge of it. "Let's get this straight. I believe we've hit on the secret of the Priory. If there's a gang of forgers at work here that would account for the efforts to get us out of the house. Jove, yes, and what a god-sent place for a press! Empty house, reputation for being haunted, only needed a little ghost-business to scare the countryside stiff, and to scare the former tenants out! I can't think why we never even suspected it."
"But Peter, it's fantastic! How could a gang of forgers know of this underground passage, and that sliding panel?"
"Not the gang, but the man at the head of it. The man who stole the book from the library, and tore the missing pages from the copy at the British Museum. The Monk, in fact."
"You mean Michael Strange, don't you?"
"I don't know whether I mean him or not, but it's clear that the Monk's no ordinary forger. He's someone who knew something about the Priory, someone who's devilish thorough and devilish clever."
She caught his hand, pressing it warningly. The bolts were being drawn back from the door of their cell. Peter thrust her behind him, and turned to face the door.