For an hour we stayed in the gallery, keeping such watch as we could and, for my part, feverishly considering what we should do.
At length Mansel bade us all listen and, with the plainest reluctance, unfolded the following plan.
“Mr. Chandos and I must reenter the Royal suite. That we can do from this end without any fuss. Mr. Hanbury with Bell and Rowley will go to the top of this tower. Ten minutes after we have entered, Mr. Chandos will give a great cry. The sentinel watching the courtyard will rush to the opposite wall, to see me piled up on the terrace, with a length of rope in my hand. I shall plainly have fallen down while attempting to scale the wall. Mr. Chandos will be kneeling beside me, trying to lift me up. The sentry will rush to his tower to raise the alarm. He will surely leave the door open—the door from the roof. Mr. Hanbury and Bell and Rowley will immediately cross the roof and follow him in.
“Now I think that Rose Noble will go to the terrace at once: and the others with him. You see, if I were to die, Mrs. Pleydell, comparatively speaking, would hardly pay for her keep. So I think they’ll all get down to me as fast as they can. Very well. While they are gone, Mr. Hanbury, Rowley and Bell will find Mrs. Pleydell, release her and carry her off. Let her down to the spur with Rowley and see that she runs for the wood. Carson to drive her to Poganec there and then. Not until she’s down on the spur will Mr. Hanbury and Bell return to the tower—with the object of killing Rose Noble before he kills them.”
He paused there for a moment, biting his lip.
“I don’t like it,” he added slowly, “but I don’t know what else to do. It washes me out of the battle and Mr. Chandos, too: but a part must be played which no one but we two can play. Rose Noble has got to be drawn from his prisoner’s side. And nothing that I can think of will do that, except my health. Any ordinary demonstration would make him stick tighter than ever to Mrs. Pleydell’s arm. But tell him I’m down and out, and, though he won’t believe you, he’ll go to see. And on that point, one word more.
“Instead of rushing to the terrace, Rose Noble might rush to the roof. He’s a very shrewd man. If he does, you’ve got him, you three. Don’t wait. Just let him have it—both barrels and one for luck. Once he’s over, you won’t see the others for dust.”
As he spoke, some door was opened, and down the winding stairway came Punter’s voice.
“An’, when you’re through, you might take a look at the Willie. I don’t suppose he’d bite you if you took out his bit.”
“Rose said—” began Casemate.
“I know,” said Punter. “That’s Rose. But I don’t fancy dead men. You can shove the corpse in the ground, but a yard full of sextons can’t bury the ⸻ shout. One or two dead’s enough, and before this worry’s over you’ll see all that. No. Let the ⸻ waste if you like, but keep ’im alive.”
At Punter’s first word we had begun to withdraw, for it had been arranged that, at the first show of movement, we should immediately enter the room which Adèle had used. At a sign from Mansel, however, I let the others retire and began to follow him gently up the stair. This was, of course, of stone, so we made no sound.
It was a desperate move, but I knew where Mansel was going and I knew he was right to go.
Casemate was bound for the kitchen: so Casemate had to be stopped. And, if he reached the guardroom before us, the game was up. You cannot pursue in silence over a wooden floor.
Mercifully the voices continued, but I never knew what they said. My ears were strained to catch nothing but a step on the stair.
But none came. Only the voices grew clearer the higher we went.
We glided into the guardroom, after the way of a snake. Then we turned right and left and stood, one on each side of the doorway, with our backs flat against the wall. The wicket opened outwards, so we were very well placed.
“I don’t care,” Casemate was saying, “I don’t like the ⸻ job. I don’t mind dirty weather, but I like to know where I am.”
“If you must know,” said Punter, “you’re up on the velvet top. Mansel put up a bluff, and its bottom’s fell out. Rose has got ’im as tight as a—”
“Never knew when he hadn’t,” said Casemate. “First, he’d never find us: and then he’d never get in. Now you say ‘That’s all right, but he’ll never get out.’ An’ what about Jute? Where’s Jute?”
“Jute knows ’is garden,” said Punter. “If Jute don’t come in, it’s because there’s some rhubarb wants watchin’ the other side.”
“If you ask me,” said Casemate, “Jute’s—well pulled out.”
“Oh, put it away,” said Punter. “Why, Jute—”
“⸻ well pulled out,” repeated Casemate. “He’s had a look at his seaweed and he’s got in out of the rain. An’ I don’t blame ’im. ‘Half a million,’ says Rose, ‘for the pickin’ up.’ ‘Pickin’ up.’ ” He sucked in his breath. “I wonder what he’d call ‘reachin’ down.’ An’ when I said ‘Who’s this Mansel?’, he says ‘He’s a one-legged Willie, with a college way of talking and a mouth full of rubber teeth.’ ”
“Now, look ’ere,” said Punter earnestly. “I don’t deny that Mansel’s not big small stuff. He ran round Jute, an’ he climbs like a ⸻ ape. But that’s where ’e gets off. He’s not up to Rose’s weight.”
“He never was,” said Casemate. “But he ⸻ near got him down: an’ he’s not dead yet.”
“Now look at it this way,” said Punter, plainly doing his best to hearten his
