‘Oh yes!’ said everyone. But it was not an easy job to drop eight feet down without being terribly jolted! Julian went first and was very much jarred. He called up to Dick: ‘We’ll have to get a bit of rope and tie it to something up there, and let it hang down the hole – it’s an awful business to let yourself drop down.’
But just as Dick went to find a rope, Julian called up again. ‘Oh, it’s all right! I’ve just seen something. There are niches carved into the sides of the hole – niches you can put foot or hand into. I didn’t see them before. You can use them to help you down.’
So down went everyone, one after another, feeling for the niches and finding them. George missed one or two, clawed wildly at the air, and dropped down the last few feet, landing with rather a bump, but she was not hurt.
As they had thought, the hole led to another secret passage in the house, but this one went straight downwards by means of steps, so that very soon they were well below the level of the house. Then they came into the .maze of tunnels that honeycombed the hill. They stopped.
‘Look here – we can’t possibly go any farther,’ said Julian. ‘We shall get lost. We haven’t got Sooty with us now, and Marybelle isn’t any good at finding the way. It would be dangerous to wander about.’
‘Listen!’ said Dick, suddenly, in a low voice. ‘There’s someone coming!’
They could hear the hollow sound of footsteps coming from a tunnel to the left of them. They all shrank back into the shadows, and Julian switched off his torch.
‘It’s two people!’ whispered Anne, as two figures came out of the nearby tunnel. One was very tall and long. The other – yes, surely the other was Block! If it wasn’t Block it was someone the exact image of him.
The men were talking in low voices, answering one another. How could it be Block, though, if he could hear as well as that? Anyway, Block was asleep in bed. It was hardly ten minutes since Julian had seen him there. Were there two Blocks, then, thought George, as she had once thought before.
The men disappeared into another tunnel, and the bright light of their lanterns disappeared gradually. The muffled rumble of their voices echoed back.
‘Shall we follow them?’ said Dick.
‘Of course not,’ said Julian. ‘We might lose them – and lose ourselves too! And supposing they suddenly turned back and found us following them? We should be in a horrid fix.’
Tm sure the first man was Mr. Barling,’ said Anne, suddenly. ‘I couldn’t see his face because the light of the lantern wasn’t on it – but he seemed just like Mr. Barling – awfully tall and long everywhere!’
‘But Mr. Barling’s gone away,’ said Marybelle.
”‘Supposed to have gone away!’ said George. ‘It looks as if he’s come back, if it was him. I wonder where those two have gone – to see my father and Sooty, do you think?’
‘Quite likely,’ said Julian. ‘Come on, let’s get back. We simply daren’t wander about by ourselves in these old tunnels. They run for miles, Sooty said, and cross one another, and go up and down and round about – even right down to the marsh. We should never, never find our way out if we got lost.’
They turned to go back. They came to the end of the steps they had been climbing, and found themselves at the bottom of the window-seat hole. It was quite easy to pull themselves up by the niches in the sides of the hole.
Soon they were all in the room again, glad to see the
sunshine streaming in at the window. They looked out. The marshes were beginning to be wreathed in mist once more, though up here the hill was golden with sunlight.
Tm going to put the screws back into the window-seat again,’ said Julian, picking up the screwdriver, and shutting down the lid. Then if Block comes here he won’t guess we’ve found this new secret place. I’m pretty certain that he unscrewed the seat so that Mr. Barling could get into this room, and then screwed it down again so that no one would guess what had happened.’
He quickly put in the screws. Then he looked at his watch.
‘Almost dinner-time, and I’m jolly hungry. I wish old Sooty was here – and Uncle Quentin. I do hope they’re all right – and Timmy too,’ said Julian. ‘I wonder if Block is still in bed – or wandering about the tunnels. I’m going to have a peep again.’
He soon came back, puzzled. ‘Yes, he’s there all right, safe in bed. It’s jolly funny.’
Block did not appear at lunch time. Sarah said he had asked not to be disturbed, if he did not appear.
‘He does get the most awful sick headaches,’ she said. ‘Maybe he’ll be all right this afternoon.’
She badly wanted to talk about everything, but the children had decided not to tell her anything. She was very nice and they liked her, but somehow they didn’t trust anyone at Smuggler’s Top. So Sarah got nothing out of them at all, and retired in rather a huff.
Julian went down to speak to Mr. Lenoir after the meal. He felt that even if the Inspector of police was not at the police-station, somebody else must be informed. He was very worried about his uncle and Sooty. He couldn’t help wondering if Mr. Lenoir had made up the bit about the Inspector being away, to put off time.
Mr. Lenoir was looking cross when Julian knocked at his study-door. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ he said to Julian. ‘I was expecting Block. I’ve rung and rung for him. The bell rings in his room and I can’t imagine why he doesn’t come. I want him to come to the police-station with me.’
‘Good!’ thought Julian. Then he spoke aloud. ‘I’ll go and hurry him up for you, Mr. Lenoir. I know where his room is.’
Julian ran up the stairs and went to the little landing up which the back-stairs went to the staff bedrooms. He pushed open Block’s door.
Block was apparently still asleep in bed! Julian called loudly, then remembered that Block was deaf. So he went over to the bed and put his hand rather roughly on the hump of the shoulder between the clothes.
But it was curiously soft! Julian drew his hand away, and looked down sharply. Then he got a real shock.
There was no Block in the bed! There was a big ball of some sort, painted black to look like a head almost under the sheets – and, when Julian threw back the covers, he saw instead of Block’s body, a large lumpy bolster, cleverly moulded to look like a curved body!
‘That’s the trick Block plays when he wants to slip off anywhere, and yet pretend he’s still here!’ said Julian. ‘So it was Block we saw in the tunnel this morning – and it must have been Block that George saw talking to Mr. Barling yesterday, when she looked through the window. He’s not deaf, either. He’s a very clever – sly – double-faced – deceitful ROGUE!’
Chapter Nineteen MR. BARLING TALKS.
MEANTIME, what was happening to Uncle Quentin and Sooty? Many strange things!
Uncle Quentin had been gagged, and drugged so that he could neither struggle nor make any noise, when Mr. Barling had crept so unexpectedly into his room. It was easy to drop him down the hole in the window-seat. He fell with a thud that bruised him considerably.
Then poor Sooty had been dropped down too, and after them had come Mr. Barling, climbing deftly down by the help of the niches in the sides.
Someone else was down there, to help Mr. Barling. Not Block, who had been left to screw down the window-seat so that no one might guess where the victims had been taken, but a hard-faced servant belonging to Mr. Barling.
‘Had to bring this boy, too – it’s Lenoir’s son,’ said Mr. Barling. ‘Snooping about in the room. Well, it will serve Lenoir right for working against me!’
The two were half-carried, half-dragged down the long flight of steps and taken into the tunnels below. Mr. Barling stopped and took a ball of string from his pocket. He tossed it to his servant.
‘Here you are. Tie the end to that nail over there, and let the string unravel as we go. I know the way quite well, but Block doesn’t, and he’ll be coming along to bring food to our couple of prisoners tomorrow. Don’t want him to lose his way! We can tie the string up again just before we get to the place I’m taking them to, so that they won’t see it and use it to escape by.’