So saying, he fairly leapt up the little flight of stone stairs, and then let his fingers glide over the smooth polished face of the oak door, pushing, probing, pressing it, a frown puckering his brows.

“If this is a genuine old secret hiding-place,” he remarked, “then according to all the rules of the game there ought to be some sort of a spring this side to open it, so that the hidden man might be able to get out again when he wanted to.  But where?  Faugh!  My fingers must be losing their cunning, and—­Ah, here it is!  Bit of wood gives way here, Dollops.  Just a gentle pressure, and—­here we are!”

And here they were, indeed, for as he spoke, the door slid back into the flooring out of sight, and they found themselves looking up into a room which was lighted by a single gas-jet, which barely illumined it, but which, when Cleek poked his head up above the flooring and took a casual survey of the place proved to be no less a place than the back kitchen of Merriton Towers!

He brought his head down again with a jerk, touched the spring in the edge of oak-panelling at the left of him, and let the door swing back across the opening once more; and not till it had slipped into place with a little click did he turn upon Dollops.

“Merriton Towers!” he ejaculated finally.  “Merriton Towers!  Now, if young Merriton really is a party to this thing that is going on down here in the bowels of the earth, why—­Dash it, it’s going to prove an even worse case against him than we knew!  A chap who plays an underhanded game like this doesn’t mind what he walks over to attain his ends.  But ...  Merriton Towers...!”

He stopped speaking suddenly, sucked in his breath, his face turned very grim.  Dollops broke the silence that fell, a tremour of excitement in his low-pitched voice.

“Yus—­but it’s the back-kitchen, sir,” he threw out eagerly, like all the rest of them anxious if possible to shield the man who seemed to have won so many hearts.  “And the back-kitchen don’t spell Sir Nigel, sir.  It’s Borkins wot’s at the bottom of that, and—­”

“Maybe, maybe,” interposed Cleek, a trifle hastily, but the grim look did not leave his face.  “But if anything as curious as all this affair turns up in the evidence it won’t help the boy any, that is a certainty....  Merriton Towers!”

He swung upon his heel and quickly retraced his steps, until the little stone passageway was left behind them, and a few feet ahead loomed up another of those queer turnings, which led—­who knew where?

“We’ll take it on chance,” said Cleek as they paused, while he marked it in his chart, “and follow our noses.  But I confess I’ve had a shock.  I never thought—­never even dreamt of Merriton Towers being connected with this smuggling or, whatever it is, Dollops!  And if I hadn’t been down in that very kitchen upon a voyage of discovery the other day, I’d have