‘You’ll get her all over blood again. Let me bind you up, and then you can attend to her.’
To Gerald’s chagrin, Melusine regarded Hilary with approval.
‘That is very sensible, mon capitaine. But I do not need that Gérard attend. I will be very well without him.’
‘Which is exactly what started us off,’ Gerald said to his friend with a grin, as he gave up his injured hand to the other’s ministrations.
‘What started you off, you madman,’ Roding told him frankly, as he set about tying his handkerchief around the wound, ‘was being born at all.’
‘That wasn’t my fault.’
‘No, but you’ve made up for it since.’
Gerald laughed. ‘This from a man who calls himself my friend.’
‘Yes, well, I was too young to see it,’ the captain said, tying a knot in his makeshift bandage. ‘Too late by the time I realised to what a dunderhead I’d pledged my friendship.’
‘You mean imbecile, don’t you?’ Gerald said, and turned his head to share the joke with Melusine.
She was no longer there.
Consternation gripped him. ‘Oh, my God, she’s gone!’
Wrenching his hand from his friend’s slackened grasp, he darted for the door, Roding behind him.
‘How the deuce did she get out without me seeing her?’
‘Took advantage of the distraction, cunning little devil,’ Gerald snapped, racing down the corridor.
‘But you know everything now,’ protested Hilary, keeping pace as Gerald took the stairs two at a time. ‘Where’s the sense in running away?’
‘Doesn’t trust me,’ Gerald said briefly.
He reached the top floor and ran down the corridor to the little dressing room at the end where he had lost her before. It was empty. Gerald kicked the panelled wall in frustration.
‘Damnation! Too late.’
‘Wait!’ Leaning forward, Hilary tapped on the panel. ‘Hollow.’
Triumph leapt in Gerald’s chest. ‘The secret passage!’
It did not take long to find the mechanism of the candlesconce that opened the door. Gerald studied the darkness beyond the aperture.
‘Think it’s worth getting some sort of light and following her down there?’ asked Roding. ‘That is, if she’s gone that way.’
Gerald considered. ‘I doubt it. Though I’ll wager she used this passage, and we certainly ought to investigate it.’
‘What about the lad?’ said the captain suddenly. ‘Must be still downstairs.’
‘She will have taken him with her. And it’s no use thinking he’d stop her. The boy’s besotted.’ He thought Roding gave him an odd look, but his next question was already in his head. ‘What did you tell Valade?’
‘Well, when I asked him what he wanted, he told me straight out that he had been told his wife was related to Jarvis Remenham, and he had come to see whoever lived here now that Jarvis was dead.’
‘So Charvill did tell him,’ Gerald said, once more staring into the hole in the wall.
‘Looks like it. In any event, I explained that no one lived here and that we’d been called in because of suspected intruders.’ Roding’s voice changed. ‘That piece of information seemed to interest him very much.’
Gerald looked round. ‘Did it indeed?’
‘I should think he’s guessed, don’t you?’
‘Without any doubt at all.’
‘Oh, she’ll be safe enough, Gerald. He doesn’t know where she is, and I told him he’d have to apply to Remenham’s lawyers if he wanted anything to do with this place.’
Gerald’s jaw tightened. ‘That’s not much comfort. He must know she’ll be at a convent. Where else could she go?’
‘And there aren’t too many of them around,’ agreed Hilary on a gloomy note.
‘She hasn’t said so, but I presume Valade had got hold of all the useful papers,’ Gerald went on. ‘Which means if he goes to the lawyers, he’ll get in ahead of Melusine. She has no proof—yet.’ He sighed. ‘No, I don’t see much future in pursuing her down this passage. We’ll have Trodger check it out later.’
He closed the panel and came slowly out of the little dressing-room, Roding at his heels.
‘Suppose you don’t know what sort of proof she was after?’ he asked.
‘That’s what started the fracas,’ Gerald admitted ruefully, nursing his injured hand as he recalled it. ‘She wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Take care,’ warned Hilary, his eyes on his improvised bandage. ‘Don’t want it to break out bleeding again.’
