And then, when he had got back un.o.bserved to the house and reported to Antony, they were going to explore the secret pa.s.sage! Again, what fun! Unfortunately there seemed to be no chance of buried treasure, but there might be buried clues. Even if you found nothing, you couldn't get away from the fact that a secret pa.s.sage was a secret pa.s.sage, and anything might happen in it. But even that wasn't the end of this exciting day. They were going to watch the pond that night; they were going to watch Cayley under the moonlight, watch him as he threw into the silence of the pond what? The revolver? Well, anyhow, they were going to watch him. What fun!

To Antony, who was older and who realized into what deep waters they were getting, it did not seem fun. But it was amazingly interesting. He saw so much, and yet somehow it was all out of focus. It was like looking at an opal, and discovering with every movement of it some new colour, some new gleam of light reflected, and yet never really seeing the opal as a whole. He was too near it, or too far away; he strained his eyes and he relaxed his eyes; it was no good. His brain could not get hold of it.

But there were moments when he almost had it.... and then turned away from it. He had seen more of life than Bill, but he had never seen murder before, and this which was in his mind now, and to which he was afraid to listen, was not just the hot-blooded killing which any man may come to if he lose control. It was something much more horrible. Too horrible to be true. Then let him look again for the truth. He looked again but it was all out of focus.

"I will not look again," he said aloud, as he began to walk towards the house. "Not yet, anyway." He would go on collecting facts and impressions. Perhaps the one fact would come along, by itself which would make everything clear.

CHAPTER XIV. Mr. Beverley Qualifies for the Stage

Bill had come back, and had reported, rather breathless, that Cayley was still at the pond.

"But I don't think they're getting up much except mud," he said. "I ran most of the way back so as to give us as much time as possible."

Antony nodded.

"Well, come along, then," he said. "The sooner, the quicker."

They stood in front of the row of sermons. Antony took down the Reverend Theodore Ussher's famous volume, and felt for the spring. Bill pulled. The shelves swung open towards them.

"By Jove!" said Bill, "it is a narrow way."

There was an opening about a yard square in front of them, which had something the look of a brick fireplace, a fireplace raised about two feet from the ground. But, save for one row of bricks in front, the floor of it was emptiness. Antony took a torch from his pocket and flashed it down into the blackness.

"Look," he whispered to the eager Bill. "The steps begin down there. Six feet down."

He flashed his torch up again. There was a handhold of iron, a sort of large iron staple, in the bricks in front of them.

"You swing off from there," said Bill. "At least, I suppose you do. I wonder how Ruth Norris liked doing it."

"Cayley helped her, I should think.... It's funny."

"Shall I go first?" asked Bill, obviously longing to do so. Antony shook his head with a smile.

"I think I will, if you don't mind very much, Bill. Just in case."

"In case of what?"

"Well in case."

Bill, had to be content with that, but he was too much excited to wonder what Antony meant.

"Righto," he said. "Go on."

"Well, we'll just make sure we can get back again, first. It really wouldn't be fair on the Inspector if we got stuck down here for the rest of our lives. He's got enough to do trying to find Mark, but if he has to find you and me as well-"

"We can always get out at the other end."

"Well, we're not certain yet. I think I'd better just go down and back. I promise faithfully not to explore."

"Right you are."

Antony sat down on the ledge of bricks, swung his feet over, and sat there for a moment, his legs dangling. He flashed his torch into the darkness again, so as to make sure where the steps began; then returned it to his pocket, seized the staple in front of him and swung himself down. His feet touched the steps beneath him, and he let go.

"Is it all right?" said Bill anxiously.

"All right. I'll just go down to the bottom of the steps and back. Stay there."

The light shone down by his feet. His head began to disappear. For a little while Bill, craning down the opening, could still see faint splashes of light, and could hear slow uncertain footsteps; for a little longer he could fancy that he saw and heard them; then he was alone....

Well, not quite alone. There was a sudden voice in the hall outside.

"Good Lord!" said Bill, turning round with a start, "Cayley!"

If he was not so quick in thought as Antony, he was quick enough in action. Thought was not demanded now. To close the secret door safely but noiselessly, to make sure that the books were in the right places, to move away to another row of shelves so as to be discovered deep in "Badminton" or "Baedeker" or whomever the kind G.o.ds should send to his aid the difficulty was not to decide what to do, but to do all this in five seconds rather than in six.

"Ah, there you are," said Cayley from the doorway.

"Hallo!" said Bill, in surprise, looking up from the fourth volume of "The Life and Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge." "Have they finished?"

"Finished what?"

"The pond," said Bill, wondering why he was reading Coleridge on such a fine afternoon. Desperately he tried to think of a good reason.... verifying a quotation-an argument with Antony-that would do. But what quotation?

"Oh, no. They're still at it. Where's Gillingham?"

'The Ancient Mariner'-water, water, everywhere-or was that something else? And where was Gillingham? Water, water everywhere...

"Tony? Oh, he's about somewhere. We're just going down to the village. They aren't finding anything at the pond, are they?"

"No. But they like doing it. Something off their minds when they can say they've done it."

Bill, deep in his book, looked up and said "Yes," and went back to it again. He was just getting to the place.

"What's the book?" said Cayley, coming up to him. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at the shelf of sermons as he came. Bill saw that glance and wondered. Was there anything there to give away the secret?

"I was just looking up a quotation," he drawled. "Tony and I had a bet about it. You know that thing about-er water, water everywhere, and-er-not a drop to drink." (But what on earth, he wondered to himself, were they betting about?)

"'Nor any drop to drink,' to be accurate."

Bill looked at him in surprise. Then a happy smile came on his face.

"Quite sure?" he said.

"Of course."