“Come on,” said Gordon: “nobody can want to have those balls left undisturbed.” And the two proceeded to play, with a good deal of noisy conversation, while Carmichael investigated the walls. “You see,” he said, “the same old pattern of cornice in the panelling. With any luck the spring will be the same.” And, sure enough, before ten minutes were up he had identified the spring. “That settles it,” said Gordon. “We’ll get Marryatt, and he and Carmichael can keep watch outside the billiard-room door. Reeves and I will go down the passage from upstairs, with an electric torch: my experience of fighting in the dark is that the man who has got the electric torch, so that he can see and can’t be seen, has got the upper hand from the start.” Marryatt was found without difficulty, and consented to mount guard after a minimum of explanation. Carmichael was provided with a revolver, chiefly _ad terrorem_, for he had no idea how to use it; Marryatt, true to medieval principle, was only armed with a niblick. Gordon took another revolver and an electric torch, and went back again with Reeves to the upper opening. When the panel had been pushed back, it needed but a little fumbling on the inner side to discover a latch. When this was lifted, they found that the wall opposite them yielded to the touch, and a whole section of the panelling turned on a vertical axis, the right side of it coming outwards into the room, the left vanishing into the passage. The work was of miraculous fineness, and when they shut the door again they had difficulty in seeing where the cracks came in the morticing of the old beams. “Those priests were well hidden,” said Gordon. “I imagine the people who hunted them out simply broke down all this stuff with hatchets. But the Secretary could hardly approve of that. Otherwise, I suppose we’re very much in the position of the Sheriff’s men.” “And the man inside is very much in the position of the priest.” “Except for one circumstance.” “Namely?” “Guilt,” said Gordon. “Well, what happens next?” “A little Dutch courage.” Gordon helped himself to a liberal glass of neat whisky. “If I were Carmichael, you would have a little lecture at this point on the origin of the phrase ‘Dutch courage.’ Dating, you see, my dear Reeves, from the seventeenth century, the last time when we were seriously at war with the Dutch. Meanwhile, I wish we were still at war with the Germans, and this were a German dug-out. Because then we should simply stand at the entrance with a bomb and tell them to come out. But there again I suppose the Secretary wouldn’t be best pleased—really, he’s becoming a nuisance, that Secretary.” “You still haven’t told me how we’re going to proceed.”