“There doesn’t seem to be anyone downstairs.  Will you wait while I run up?”

“No,” said Nick.  “I’m coming too.”

They ascended therefore, and commenced to search the upper regions.  But the same absolute quiet reigned above as below.  Only the loud ticking of a cuckoo-clock at the head of the stairs aggravated the stillness.

Olga opened one or two doors along the passage and looked into empty rooms, and finally turned round to Nick with scared eyes.

“What can have happened?  Where can she be gone?”

As she uttered the words, there fell a heavy footstep in the sanded passage below, and the sound of a man’s cough came up to them.

Nick wheeled.  “Hi, Briggs!  Is that you?”

“Briggs it is,” said a thick voice.

Nick descended the stairs with Olga behind him, and encountered the owner thereof at the bottom.  He was a large-limbed man with a permanent slouch and a red and sullen countenance that very faithfully bore witness to his habits.  He stood and regarded Nick with a fixed and somewhat aggressive stare.

“Where’s the missis?” he said.

“That’s just what I want to know,” said Nick.

Briggs uttered an uneasy guffaw as if he suspected the existence of a joke that had somewhat eluded him.  His eyes rolled upward to Olga, and back to Nick.

“Well, she ain’t ’ere seemin’ly,” he remarked.

“Don’t you know where she is?” demanded Nick.

Briggs grinned foolishly.  “That’s tellin’!” he observed facetiously.

Nick turned from him.  “Come along, Olga!  They are not here evidently.  It’s no use trying to get any sense out of this drunken beast.”

“But, Nick—­” said Olga in distress.

“We will go down to the shore,” he said.  “Here, you Briggs!  Stand back, will you?”

Briggs was blocking the narrow passage with his great bull-frame, and showed no disposition to let them pass.  He seemed to think he had a grievance, and he commenced to state it in a rambling, disjointed fashion, holding them prisoners on the stairs while he did so.

Nick bore with him for exactly ten seconds, and then, clean and straight, with lightning swiftness, his one hand shot forward.  It was a single hard blow, delivered full on the jaw with a force that nearly carried Nick with it, and it sent the offender staggering backwards on his heels in bellowing astonishment.  The opposite wall saved him from falling headlong, but the impact was considerable, and tendered him quite incapable of recovering his He subsided slowly onto the floor with a flood of language that at least testified to the fact that his injuries were not severe.

Nick’s arm went round Olga in a flash.  He almost lifted her over the legs of the prostrate Briggs and hurried her down the passage.  As they emerged into the smoky sunlight, she heard him laugh, and marvelled that he could.

“On second thoughts,” he said, with the air of one resuming an interrupted discussion, “I think we will go to the Priory.  If she is not there, she is probably on the way.”