astonishment upon his face.

"Hello, hello!" he exclaimed. "So that's it, is it? Gad! This is the
approved hiding-place! Then those tubings--Dollops, just a little more
of this wearisome search, just a few telephone calls to be made, and I
believe I shall have untied at least _one_ part of this strange riddle.
And when that knot is unfastened, it will surely lead me to the
rest.... Go on, boy."

They went on, stepping carefully, and hesitating now and again to listen
for any sound of alien footsteps. But the place might have been the grave
for any sign of human habitation that there was. They had it to
themselves that night, and made the most of it.

For some time they walked on, taking the road that most appealed to them,
and in the maze must surely have retraced their own footsteps. Of a
sudden, however, they broke into a sort of rough stone passage, with
concrete floor that ran on for a few yards and ended at a flight of
well-made stone steps, above which was a square of polished oak,
worm-eaten, heavily-carved, and surely not of this generation's
make or structure.

"Now, what the dickens...?" began Cleek, and stopped.

Dollops surveyed it with his head on one side.

"Seems ter me, sir," he began, after a pause, "that this yere's the
genuyne article. One of them old passages what people like King Charles
and Bloody Mary an' a few other of them celebrities you sees at Madame
Tussord's any day in the week, used to 'ide in when things were a-gettin'
too 'ot fer 'em. That's what this is."

"Your history's a bit rocky, but your ideas are all right," returned
Cleek with a little smile, as he stood looking up at the square of black
oak above them. "I believe you're right, Dollops. It must have given the
later arrivals a big start in that tunnelling business, or else they've
been at it, or both. There must be years' work in this system of
passageways. It is marvelous. But if it's a genuine old secret passage,
those stairs will probably lead up into a house, and--let's try 'em. If
the house they lead into is the one I think it is.... Well, we'll be
unravelling the rest of this riddle before the night is out!"

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 gam