How Jill Trelawney kept an appointment,
and Simon Templar went paddling
1
ESSENDEN poured himself out another drink, and pushed the decanter towards the centre of the table.
It was quiet in Essenden Towers that night. Lord Essenden had seen to that. With some ingenuity, and a solicitude which hitherto he had not been in the habit of manifesting, he had suggested to Lady Essenden that her appreciation of country life would be enhanced by an occasional visit to London, In fact, he said, he had taken a box at the Orpheum Theatre, for that very night.
It was unfortunate that at the last moment, when they had been on the point of setting out for London, Lord Essenden had been overcome by a violent and agonizing attack of toothache. But he refused to allow his misfortune to interfere with his wife's amusement, and insisted that she should go to London alone. He had telephoned to friends and arranged for them to accompany his lady.
That was one thing. The servants had been a second problem. But, in the matter of disposing of the servants, Fate had played kindly into his hand. That night there was a dance in the next village. His staff had previously applied to him for permission to attend, which he had refused. Now he repented, and, in an astonishing burst of generosity, he gave the evening off to every man and woman in Essenden Towers. The butler would have stayed, but Essenden packed him off with the others, saying he would much rather be left alone with his ache.
Thus it had been easy for Lord Essenden to introduce into the house the four men who now bore him company.
They had been carefully chosen. Lord Essenden had very few more criminal acquaintances than any other successful financier, but from the hoodlums of his acquaintance he had selected those four with care and forethought.
They sat round the table, helping themselves from the whisky bottle which he had placed at their disposal-four carefully chosen men. There was "Flash" Arne, a ferrety-faced man with a taste in diamond rings and horsy tweeds, a prominent member of a race gang that many North of England bookmakers had known to their cost. There was "Snake" Ganning, recently released from Pentonville; tall and lean and supple, with the sleek black hair and long neck and beady eyes that had earned him his name. There was "Red" Harver, with the permanent scowl and the huge hasty fists. And there was Matthew Keld, who had once had his face slashed from temple to chin with a razor by a man who was never given the chance to slash another face in his life. Four very carefully chosen men.
Essenden spoke:
"Is everything quite clear?"
He looked round the small circle of faces, and the owners of the faces gazed back at him complacently. Snake Ganning inclined his head on the end of his long neck and answered for them all, in his soft, sibilant voice.
"Everything's quite clear."
"I can't tell you how they'll come in," said Essenden. "I do know that there are only two of them. If I know anything about them, I should say they'd probably walk up to the front door and ring the bell. But they may not. I've worked out the posts I've given you in different parts of the house so that each one of you will easily be able to cover his share of the ground-floor rooms. There are alarms everywhere, and you will all be in touch with one another. The man you wilt deal with as you like. The girl you will bring to me."
It was the fourth or fifth time that Lord Essenden had repeated similar instructions in his fussy and hesitant way, and the Snake's sunken black eyes regarded their employer with a certain contempt.
"We heard you," he said.
"All right."
Essenden fidgeted with his tie, and looked at his watch for the twentieth time.
"I think you'd better go to your posts," he said.
Ganning rose, uncoiling his long length like a slowed-up jack-in-the-box.
"C'mon," he said.
Arne and Keld rose to follow him, but Red Harver sat where he was. Ganning tapped him on the shoulder.
"C'mon, Beef."
Harver rose slowly, without looking round. His eyes were fixed intently on something behind Essenden. Behind Essenden was a window, with the heavy curtains drawn.
The others, looking curiously at Harver, grasped what he was staring at, and followed his gaze. But they saw nothing. Essenden himself turned, with an abrupt jumpy movement. Then he turned round again.
"What's the matter, Harver?" he croaked.
Harver's huge arm and fist shot out, pointing.
"Did you shut that window?" he demanded.
"Of course I did," said Essenden. "You saw me shut it."
"You shut it properly?"
"Of course I did," repeated Essenden.
Harver pushed the table out of his path with a sweep of one arm.
"Well, if it hasn't blown open," he said, "somebody's opened it. I've just seen those curtains move!"
He stood in the centre of the group, a red-headed giant, and the others instinctively checked their breath.
Essenden shifted away.
Ganning's right hand sidled round to his hip pocket, and Flash Arne buttoned his coat deliberately.
Harver stepped cautiously forward on tiptoe.
The stealthy movement ended in a quick rush. Harver's huge, apelike arms gathered up all the curtains in one wide sweep, and he held something in the enveloping folds of the curtains like a fish in a net.
He carried his whole capture bodily back into the centre of the room, tearing the curtains down as if they had been held with thin cotton. There he threw the bundle down, and stood back while the intruder struggled into view.
"Well, who are you?" barked Essenden feebly, from the outskirts of the group.
The man on the floor pulled his cap off his eyes and blinked dazedly about him. He was not a beautiful sight. The suit he wore was stained and dusty. Portions of a pair of vividly striped socks were visible between the frayed ends of his trousers and the tops of a pair of muddy boots. Round his neck, presumably as a substitute for shirt and collar and tie, he wore a red choker. His cap was very purple. It appeared to be several days since he had last shaved, and a black shield obscuring one eye gave his face a sinister and unsavoury appearance. And when he spoke he whined.
"I wasn't doin' no 'arm, guv'nor."
Harver reached out one ham-like hand to the man's collar and yanked him to his feet.
"What's your name?" he demanded.
"George," said the burglar miserably.
"George what?"
"Albert George."
Harver shook his prisoner like a rat.
"And what were you doing there?"
"Oh, lay off him, Red," said Ganning. "He's nothing to do with this."
Essenden came closer.
"We don't know that," he said. "This might be one of her tricks. Anyway, even if he isn't anything to do with it, he may have heard us talking."
Harver shook the captive again.
"How much did you hear?" he snarled.
A look of fear came into the eyes of Albert George.
"I didn't 'ear nuffin', s'welp me, I didn't."
"Liar!" said Flash Arne delicately.
"S'welp me," wailed the prisoner, "I didn't 'ear nuffin'."
Harver chuckled throatily.
"I'll s'welp you," he said, "if you don't remember something. Who told you to come here?"
"S'welp me—"
Harver drove his fist into the man's chest, sending him reeling back against the wall.
"I promised I'd s'welp you," he said, "and I have. Now, are you going to talk?"
He followed up his victim with measured, ponderous strides, and the slighter man cowered back. Arne and Keld and Ganning stood watching dispassionately. The prisoner shrank away, his face contorted with terror. And as Harver came within striking distance again and his fist went back for another blow, Albert George voiced a sharp, shrill yelp of panic.
"S'welp me!"
He ducked frantically, and Harver's fist smashed shatteringly into the wall. George scuttled into a corner and crouched there, but Harver turned like an enraged bull and came after him.
"I'll talk," screamed the prisoner. "Don't hit me again—"
Harver seemed about to refuse the offer, but Essenden put himself between the two men.
"Wait a minute," he said. "There'll be time for that later. We'll hear what he's got to say."
Albert George huddled against the wall.
"It's a cop," he said, between breaths that came in labouring gasps. "But it wasn't my idea. It was a bloke I met this morning in Seven Dials. 'E told me there was a man 'e wanted beaten up, name of Essenden. Is one of you gents Mr. Essenden?"
"Go on," growled Harver.
"There was a lot of money for it, and 'e said there wasn't no risk. I'd just got to open a winder on the ground floor, an' get in. 'E told me where the alarms was, an' 'e drew me a plan of the 'ouse, an' 'e marked the bedroom, an' 'e says, 'You just go in that room and slosh 'im one, an' I'll be waitin' for yer at the Lodge gates wiv a car to tyke yer back to London.' "
"He said he'd be waiting at the Lodge gates with a car?"
Albert George swallowed.
"Yus. What's the time? 'E said 'e'd be there at ten o'clock."
"What was this man's name?"
"I dunno. 'E was a toff. All dressed up, 'e was, like 'im." He pointed to Flash Arne.
"Was there anyone with him?"
"Yus. There was a woman with 'im. She was a toff, too. She'll be in the car, too — she said she would."
Ganning took his hand away from his hip pocket.
"Well, that ought to be easy," he said. He looked at Essenden. "Guess we'd better go down and fetch them in."
Essenden nodded. He could hardly believe his good fortune.
"You'd better all go," he said. "They may be armed. Here, tie this man up first."
He took a length of cord out of a drawer and brought it over. Harver seized the prisoner's arms and twisted them roughly behind him. Keld performed the roping with a practised hand. The prisoner was then dropped into a corner like a sack of coals.
"He won't get out of that in a hurry," said Matt Keld.
Ganning hitched himself round the table.
"C'mon," he said.
The four men trailed out through the French windows.
Lord Essenden, left alone, went and helped himself again from the decanter. This time it seemed that Fate had played right into his hand. Jill Trelawney was clever — he admitted that — but, for once, he had been cleverer. He gazed contemplatively at the unkempt figure which lay huddled in the corner, just where it had been dropped. It struck him that the Saint had showed an astounding lack of discrimination in sending such a man to "slosh him one."
He was at a loss to divine completely what might be the object of these attacks. It was not so long ago that he had been severely beaten up at the instigation of Jill Trelawney by a member of the Donnell gang. Here, apparently, yet another tough had been hired for the same purpose. From her point of view he could see nothing that these attacks might achieve. But, from his point of view, he had to admit that the prospect of being beaten up and sent to hospital at regular intervals was, in a general way, discouraging. He still carried a fresh pink scar on his forehead as a memento of the last occasion, and it burned with reminiscent hatred whenever he thought of Jill Trelawney.
He put down the glass and wiped his lips on a silk handkerchief. Albert George lay huddled in the corner, his chin drooped upon his chest, and his whole pose one of lifeless resignation. Essenden went over and stirred him with the toe of a patent-leather shoe.
"How much were you getting for this?" he barked, and the shaky staccato of his voice was an indication of the strain of anxiety that was racking his mind.
The man looked up at him with one furtive eye.
" 'Undred quid," he said, and lapsed again into his stupor.
Essenden went back and poured another two fingers of whisky into his glass. A hundred pounds was a large sum of money to pay for a bashing. There were many men available, he knew, who would undertake such a task for much less, and if this seedy, down-at-heel specimen was being paid a hundred quid for the job, Harry Donnell must have picked up at least twice that amount. Of course, there were varying rates for these affairs. A man can be put in hospital for a week for a fairly reasonable charge. More is asked for breaking a limb, and correspondingly more for breaking two limbs. These facts are very well known in some circles of which Lord Essenden had more than once touched the fringe. Even so…
Even so, that night's incident was but another confirmation of the fact that Jill Trelawney was at no loss for funds to carry on her campaign. So much the police had already observed, when her previous exploits at the head of the Angels of Doom had set them by the ears and roused screams of condemnation for their inefficiency from a hysterical press. And if the Angels of Doom were dispersed, and Jill Trelawney was herself a hunted criminal with a price on her head and the shadow of the gallows on her path, it seemed that she was still able to keep control of the finances which had made her such a formidable outlaw in the past. Of course, the Saint was with her now, and the Saint's resources were popularly believed to be inexhaustible. And there was also the minor detail of the two hundred thousand odd francs that had disappeared in Paris.
The memory of Paris produced an unpleasant feeling of emptiness in the pit of his stomach, and he sent a gulp of whisky down to anaesthetize the void. For the wallet and notebook which had been taken from him at the same time, and the contents of which either Jill Trelawney or the Saint had successfully decoded, contained scraps of information which, adroitly pieced together and studiously followed up, were not incapable of bringing his own name into dangerously close connection with a traffic upon which the law frowns in a most unfriendly way; and which it can, without difficulty, be moved to punish with five years' penal servitude and twenty-five strokes of a nine-thonged whip.
He glanced at his watch again, wondering how much longer it would be before his men returned. And at that moment he heard a bell ring in the depths of the house.
He was so keyed up that the sudden disturbance of the silence, faint as it was, made his hand jerk so that some of the liquor in his glass splashed onto the carpet at his feet. He put the glass down carefully, and touched the heavy metallic shape in his jacket pocket to reassure himself. Then, half hesitantly, and uncertain of the impulse which prompted him to go and investigate, he went out into the dark hall. As he switched on the lights, the summons was repeated.
He opened the door.
Jill Trelawney stood on the threshold, straight and slim in a plain tweed travelling costume, with her own soft hair, freed from the black wig that had so effectively baulked Chief Inspector Teal's celebrated memory, peeping from under the small brown hat that framed her exquisite face. At the sight of Essenden her eyes gave no more than the most cursory flicker of recognition.
"Good-evening," she said quietly.
He stepped back falteringly, perplexed, but without hesitation she swept past him into the hall; and, with the world reeling about his ears, he turned to close the door.
It has been said that she swept past him into the hall. That, in fact, was Lord Essenden's own impression, but actually she was almost on his heels — close enough to press into the small of his back something round and hard which he knew could only be one thing — and when she spoke her voice Came from a point close behind his ear.
"Put them up," she commanded, in the same quiet tone in which she had said "Good-evening."
Lord Essenden put them up. His brain seemed to have gone dead — and must, he knew now, have gone dead at least two minutes ago.
She saw the light beyond the door of a room farther down the hall and urged him towards it. He led on, helplessly, his hands held high above his head, back into the room he had just left.
In the centre of the room she stopped him and flung a glance over her shoulder at the bound figure in the corner.
"Hullo, Saint!" she said.
2
Simon Templar smiled with his lips and his one visible eye.
"Hullo, Jill!" he murmured. "And how have you been keeping all these years?"
The girl backed towards him, still covering Essenden with her little gun; and there was a knife in her left hand. The Saint turned over, and Jill stooped and hacked swiftly and accurately at the cords that held him. In a moment he was free, scrambling to his feet and stretching himself.
"That's better," he remarked. "Brother Matthew has efficient but violent ideas on the subject of roping people. Pull the knots as tight as you can without breaking the rope — that's Matthew. Very sound, but uncomfortable for the victim. However, here we are…"
He was dusting his coat. It was really a very respectable coat, when he brushed off the shabbiness which he had applied with French chalk. The enormous boots, removed, disclosed a neat pair of shoes worn beneath them. The horribly striped socks were dummies, which he unbuttoned and put in his pocket. The red choker, removed also, proved that the impression it conveyed at first sight was false: he actually wore shirt, collar, and tie underneath it, and all three were quietly elegant. Before Essenden's staring eyes, he slipped off the very purple cap and the eyeshade, wiped the blue make-up from his chin with his handkerchief, and so ceased to bear the slightest resemblance to Albert George.
"An ingenious device," he said, "to divide the enemy's camp. But not, to tell you the truth, original. None the less useful for that."
"Did you have any trouble?" asked Jill. "Not much. Just one rough man. He hit me once, which was tiresome, and he hit the wall once, which must have hurt him quite a lot. Otherwise, no damage was done. And the whole bunch went off to look for the car like four maggots in search of a green cheese."
Essenden, standing back against the wall with Jill Trelawney's automatic centred unwaveringly on his waistcoat, knew fear. There was a gun in his own pocket, but he dared not reach for it. The girl had never taken her eyes off him for more than a fleeting second, and the expression in those eyes told him that her finger was itching on the trigger.
He realized that he had been criminally careless. Even when he saw her outside the front door, he had not been alarmed — so insanely blinded had he been by the story of Albert George. He knew that his four guards would return in a few moments; he was sure also that, whatever she meant to do, she would not do it while he could convince her that so long as she held her hand she had the chance of getting the information his advertisement had offered; he had meant to play up that offer — it was his trump card for an emergency, and he had been convinced that as long as he held that card he could be in no real danger. But the unmasking of Albert George — the revelation that there was not only Jill Trelawney, but also Simon Templar, to cope with — that had upset Essenden's confident equilibrium.
There was something rather horrible about a shifting flicker of snapping nerves in the eyes of such a fussy and foolish-looking little man.
The grimly brilliant scheme that he had elaborated was toppling down like a house of cards…
But Jill Trelawney only laughed.
"Now we have our talk, don't we?" she said; and Lord Essenden seemed to shiver — but that might have been due to nothing but the draught from the French windows which his guards had left ajar when they went out.
By the windows stood the Saint.
"The boys are coming back," he said. "This time, I think, a gun might save trouble."
He stepped over to Essenden, lifted the automatic from Essenden's pocket, and retired to the cover of a bookcase which projected in such a way that it would hide him from the view of anyone entering by the windows.
"And if you'll just take Essenden for a walk," he drawled, "I'll give a yodel when the collection is complete. It's a bit late in the year, but you might find some mistletoe somewhere—"
"O.K., Big Boy."
Simon watched Essenden removed; and leaned back against the wall with the peer's gun swinging lightly in his hand.
Voices spoke outside the windows. The voice of Red Harver, booming above the others, said: "A plant, that's what it was—"
And the voice stopped short, on the threshold of the room, it seemed to Simon; and the other voices died down also.
Then Flash Arne spat an unprintable word.
Keld yapped: "He couldn't've got outa those ropes — not by hisself, he couldn't—"
"There's the rope there on the floor where he was," Ganning hissed derisively. "I suppose he just melted and trickled through it and froze again on the other side."
"Don't talk soft," snarled Harver. "We know Albert George was a liar. One of his pals has been in here while we were outside—"
"Quate," said the Saint apologetically. "Oh, quate!"
Harver whipped round, his fists doubling; but the automatic in the Saint's hand discouraged him. It discouraged Ganning, who was renowned for his slickness on the draw, and Flash Arne, who knew some tricks of his own; and it discouraged Matthew Keld, that violent but efficient rope expert.
"Sorry," said the Saint, without regret, "but it's a cop as George said."
Red Harver, peering savagely at him, recognized him by his voice.
"You—"
"Oh, no," said the Saint in distress. "Never. I hate sitting with my back to the engine."
He herded the four men into a convenient corner, in his briskly persuasive way, and raised his voice to Jill. Lord Essenden came through the door first, and Ganning drew in his breath sharply; but the mystery was solved when Jill Trelawney followed.
"If you'll take over," said the Saint, "I'll go and look for some more rope."
The girl nodded briefly. Her automatic, swinging in a little arc over the latitude of the five prisoners, said all that there was left to say.
Simon went swiftly through the pockets of the group, and brought back four guns, two life preservers, a knife, and a razor, which he deposited in the coal scuttle with a faint gesture of distaste.
Then he sought the kitchen, and presently came back with six fathoms of good cord.
His methods of roping were less primitive than those of Matthew Keld, but they were equally efficient. When he had finished, only four Houdinis could have restored Messrs. Arne, Ganning, Keld, and Harver to the position of mobile actors in the scene. Essenden, however, he left. "You might," he suggested to Jill, "want to ask his lordship a few questions. And I might want this rope's end to encourage him to answer."
He made a long yard of rope whistle horrifically through the air; but the girl shook her head.
"He's already started to answer."
Simon raised his eyebrows.
"Have you rung a bell?"
Essenden spoke in a cracked voice: "Of course I've answered. Why shouldn't I have meant what I said in my advertisement? But I thought you might think my advertisement was a trap, so I had to protect myself. That's the only reason I brought these other men into it."
"A beautiful bunch!" murmured the Saint skeptically. His leisured gaze swept over the quartet like a genial blizzard. "I think I know them all. I know about Red Harver's seven years for manslaughter — which ought to have been a quick hanging for murder. I know all about Brother Matthew and the Waikiki Club. I know how Flash Arne gets the money to buy his diamond rings. And I've met Snake Ganning before. Say 'how d'you do,' Snake."
"I admit all that," said Essenden fretfully, "but—"
"What you mean," said Jill Trelawney calmly, "is that you laid a trap for us, but we've made you the pigeon. You're in the soup you brewed for Simon and me. Your gay little party has kind of bust. And now, to save your skin, you're prepared to reopen your original offer. Having flopped on the double-cross, you're anxious to hurry back to the first bargain. Isn't that it?"
She had no grounds for asking whether that was it. But then, the question was almost purely rhetorical. What she was actually doing was to point out to Essenden the only course of action that was left open to him. She wasn't asking a question at all — she was commanding. Persuasively she spoke, in a quiet and reasonable voice, with sudden death aimed steadily from her hand, and murder in the clear tawny eyes like two drops of frozen gold.
"Yes," said Essenden hoarsely, "that's it."
"Go on."
Essenden swallowed.
"Your father wasn't framed."
He paused.
"I said — Go on!"
The girl's voice ripped out like a pistol shot; yet she had not spoken loudly. The likeness came only from her tone — sharp, swift, distinct, deadly.
"I was in it — I admit that — the thing he was framed for, but he was unlucky. You don't believe me. But I can prove it. I've kept the papers — papers that never came into the inquiry, naturally. If they had, they'd have made it worse for him. I can show you letters in his own hand —"
"Where?"
"In my private safe — hidden away—"
"Where?"
Essenden seemed to flinch from the glacial inclemency of her voice.
"In the cellar."
"Oh, yeah?" said the Saint unnecessarily.
"There's a door under the main staircase. You go down—"
"And flop through a patent trapdoor into the castle drains," said the Saint, unimpressed. "Sorry to disappoint you, comrade, but we've heard that one before."
The girl answered unemotionally.
"I'll go and see if he's lying," she said. "If he is— well, you can use that rope's end. But we might as well see — in case he's telling the truth by accident."
Simon tossed the length of rope onto the table with a shrug.
"I'll go," he said, "though I don't think it's much use. Let's have some more directions. Down the stairs—"
"You come to the wine cellar," said Essenden. "Go straight through that. There's a door at the far end, and the key hangs on a nail beside it. You'll find some more steps down. They lead into what's left of an old secret passage. About twenty yards along, it opens into a sort of cave…"
Simon heard out the story.
"Right," he said. "It sounds to me like a feeble attempt to waste time, but I'll go. I'm just warning you that if it is a waste of time — oh, Marmaduke, my pet, you're going to wish you'd never had that bright idea."
"I'm not wasting time," said Essenden.
The Saint looked at him. He had a dim suspicion that there was something in Essenden's eyes that should not have been there; but he could not be sure. And yet — what could the trick possibly be? Not more than a device to get rid of the man, in the hope that the woman would be easier to deal with.
Regarded in that way, the idea became ludicrous— to anyone with a scrap of imagination and the slightest knowledge of Jill Trelawney. Yet Simon turned in the doorway and spoke a ridiculous warning.
"Jill," he said, "it's just possible that he's expecting to do something clever when he's got you alone. But the dangerous four are safely trussed up, and Marmaduke's a very silly little man and not at all necessary to the cause of Empire Free Trade — so if he does raise up on his hind legs—"
"You should worry," said the girl. "That's just what I'm waiting for. I've got both eyes on his lordship, and they're not blinking till you come back."
"Good enough, baby," said the Saint, and drifted out.
He went down the hall and found the door under the main staircase without any difficulty. Opening it, he found a switch, and went down a long flight of stone stairs, finding the wine cellar at the bottom, as he had been told he would. By his side, at the foot of the stairs, he found another switch, and with this he was able to light up the cellar. The door at the far end was of massive and ancient wood, heavily barred, and studded with iron. He would have expected such a door to be heavily dusted and cobwebbed; but a faint trace of oil about the hinges was enough to tell his keen eyes that he would not be the first person to penetrate into the passage.
He took down the key. It was bright and newly burnished, and the lock turned easily. Beyond the door, when he had opened it, he found another switch, and this lighted up a row of frosted bulbs along the tunnel that faced him.
A breath of damp, musty air struck his face. He went on cautiously, and with a faint feeling of illogical alertness tingling up his spine — a feeling almost amounting to apprehension. He scowled at the feeling. There was no reason for it — no basis beyond the fact that he had imagined he had caught in Essenden's eye a flicker of an expression whose interpretation had baffled him. But he went on, calling himself every manner of fool, and kept his hand on his gun.
The passage sloped steeply downwards, and the last ten yards were almost precipitous. He descended them gingerly by the aid of well-worn crevices in the stone paving that must once have been another flight of steps, before they had been worn away into mere ridges in a steep slope.
The roof of the passage, which had been low at the beginning, did not descend with the slope. It remained at its old level, so that the space above his head became loftier as he went down. At the foot of the slope the passage took a sharp turn. He rounded the corner and found himself suddenly in the place that Essenden had described as "a sort of cave." It was certainly a sort of cave, but of a sort that the Saint had never expected to find in such a place. Where he entered it the roof was not very high, and the light from the last of the row of bulbs which had led him there illuminated it. But of the extent of the cavern he could not judge. It stretched away beyond the rough semicircle of illumination, its ultimate depths of darkness dwarfing the light at that one end. He spoke a few pointless words with some idea of testing the dimensions of the cave, and the echoes of his voice reverberated backwards and forwards with a wild and swelling intensity until they almost deafened him, and then gradually rolled and rattled away into the bowels of the earth. And when the echoes had stopped, in the utter silence and loneliness of the place, he had no inclination to burst into tears because his instructions did not compel him to penetrate any farther into that gigantic crypt.
He turned. The aperture through which he had come seemed now, in perspective with the rest of the place, to have a puny and insignificant appearance, like a mouse hole in a cathedral wall; but on the right of the entrance he found what he had been told to look for. In the centre of the wall of the cave, about a dozen feet apart, were two sets of chains hanging from iron staples cemented into the rock. He was to look between these.
He went forward. At the foot of the cavern wall, between the wall and himself, ran a kind of dark stream, about four feet wide. Standing on the edge of this, he was able to see, in the wall opposite him, a flat square slab like a flagstone let into the natural rock — exactly as he had been told he would find it.
With a sigh he retired a few paces, removed his shoes and socks, and turned up his trousers. Then he stepped delicately into the dark, ice-cold water.
It could not have been more than six inches deep.