“Where is Superintendent Battle? I have not seen him this afternoon.”
“He’s gone to London. I met him at the station.”
“Gone to London? Really? Did he say when he would be back?”
“Early to-morrow, so I understood.”
Virginia came in with Lord Caterham and Mr. Fish. She smiled a welcome at Anthony.
“So you’re back, Mr. Cade. Have you heard all about our adventures last night?”
“Why, trooly, Mr. Cade,” said Hiram Fish. “It was a night of strenuous excitement. Did you hear that I mistook Mrs. Revel for one of the thugs?”
“And in the meantime,” said Anthony, “the thug?”
“Got clear away,” said Mr. Fish mournfully.
“Do pour out,” said Lord Caterham to Virginia. “I don’t know where Bundle is.”
Virginia officiated. Then she came and sat down near Anthony.
“Come to the boat-house after tea,” she said in a low voice. “Bill and I have got a lot to tell you.”
Then she joined lightly in the general conversation.
The meeting at the boat-house was duly held.
Virginia and Bill were bubbling over with their news. They agreed that a boat in the middle of the lake was the only safe place for confidential conversation. Having paddled out a sufficient distance, the full story of last night’s adventure was related to Anthony. Bill looked a little sulky. He wished Virginia would not insist on bringing this Colonial fellow into it.
“It’s very odd,” said Anthony, when the story was finished. “What do you make of it?” he asked Virginia.
“I think they were looking for something,” she returned promptly. “The burglar idea is absurd.”
“They thought the something, whatever it was, might be concealed in the suits of armour, that’s clear enough. But why tap the panelling? That locks more as though they were looking for a secret staircase, or something of that kind.”
“There’s a Priest’s Hole at Chimneys, I know,” said Virginia. “And I believe there’s a secret staircase as well. Lord Caterham would tell us all about it. What I want to know is, what can they have been looking for?”
140
