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.
"Yes, ma'am," said Fripp with feeling, "and if I was you I wouldn't have one of them cleaners in the house, not if I was paid to. They're enough to break your heart."
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?"
"Yes. Send a man over to make a lot of inquiries, and make it seem we're on the wrong track. Well, Flinders will do a bit of searching all the morning, I don't doubt, and so long as he doesn't know the truth he'll put every one off the scent. I'll get back to the station now, and be with you again about ten."
Margaret said worriedly: "Must you go back that way? I suppose it's safe, but I don't like to think of you down there."
Charles opened his eyes at that, but Margaret did not notice his surprise.
"I shall be all right," Michael said. "You go and get some sleep. So long!" He went through on to the stair, Fripp followed him, and as Michael set his foot on the second step the panel slid into place again.
Charles went to see the inspector off the premises. When he came back Margaret was telling her story to her sister and aunt. Charles listened to it in silence, but when she had finished he drew a long breath. "Talk about halfwits!" he said. "Why did you want to go and step into the cavity?"
"I know it was silly, but…'
"Silly?" said Charles. "Call a spade a spade for once. You go through the opening, drop bracelets about, shout to Peter to come and have a look at what you've found, as though it were a sovereign left over from before the war, and then you're surprised the Monk grabs you. I don't blame him, poor chap. As for Peter - can you beat it? If his face was different he'd be cut out for the hero in a popular thriller. He knew Margaret had been pinched, but did he get his revolver? Not a bit of it! After making enough noise on the panel to bring up half a hundred monks, he bursts in, all full of heroism, and very properly gets knocked on the head."
"Well, I'd like to know what you'd have done in my place," Peter said.
"I should at least have remembered the planchette," Charles said.
Celia interposed as Peter was about to retort. "No, don't bother to answer him, Peter. Come up to bed. You must both be worn out."
Accordingly they all went upstairs, and in spite of the fact that Margaret felt she would not be able to close her eyes, so wide-awake did she feel, she dropped into a dreamless sleep almost as soon as her head had touched the pillow.
She awoke four hours later, feeling rather heavyeyed, but not in the least inclined to stay in bed. She wondered whether it would be safe to venture out of her room, and at that moment Celia cautiously looked in.
"Oh, you're awake! Darling, will you have breakfast in bed?"
"No, rather not!" Margaret said, getting up. "Where's Jane? Is it all right for me to go and have a bath?"
"My dear, it's absolutely providential! She's apparently so scared by the news of your disappearance, which Flinders seems to be zealously spreading round the village, that she hasn't come at all! Her father turned up at eight with a feeble excuse, and we're quite safe. I told Mrs. Bowers we'd have breakfast at half-past nine. I'll go and see if Charles is out of the bathroom yet." She withdrew, and Margaret collected her towels and sponges, and prepared to follow her.