See here--this queer-looking machine, gentlemen (from which two of my men derive their nicknames), is what we call a Mill-and-Screw."
He began to explain the machine with the manner and tone of a lecturer at a scientific institution. In spite of themselves, the officers burst out laughing. I looked round at Screw as the doctor got deeper into his explanations. The traitor was rolling his wicked eyes horribly at me. They presented so shocking a sight, that I looked away again. What was I to do next? The minutes were getting on, and I had not heard a word yet, through the peephole, on the subject of the reserve of Bow Street runners outside. Would it not be best to risk everything, and get away at once by the back of the house?
Just as I had resolved on v enturing the worst, and making my escape forthwith, I heard the officers interrupt the doctor's lecture.
"Your lunch is a long time coming," said one of them.
"Moses is lazy," answered the doctor; "and the Madeira is in a remote part of the cellar. Shall I ring again?"
"Hang your ringing again!" growled the runner, impatiently. "I don't understand why our reserve men are not here yet. Suppose you go and give them a whistle, Sam."
"I don't half like leaving you," returned Sam. "This learned gentleman here is rather a shifty sort of chap; and it strikes me that two of us isn't a bit too much to watch him."
"What's that?" exclaimed Sam's comrade, suspiciously.
A crash of broken crockery in the lower part of the house had followed that last word of the cautious officer's speech. Naturally, I could draw no special inference from the sound; but, for all that, it filled me with a breathless interest and suspicion, which held me irresistibly at the peephole--though the moment before I had made up my mind to fly from the house.
"Moses is awkward as well as lazy," said the doctor. "He has dropped the tray! Oh, dear, dear me! he has certainly dropped the tray."
"Let's take our learned friend downstairs between us," suggested Sam. "I shan't be easy till we've got him out of the house."
"And I shan't be easy if we don't handcuff him before we leave the room," returned the other.
"Rude conduct, gentlemen--after all that has passed, remarkably rude conduct," said the doctor. "May I, at least, get my hat while my hands are at liberty? It hangs on that peg opposite to us." He moved toward it a few steps into the middle of the room while he spoke.
"Stop!" said Sam; "I'll get your hat for you. We'll see if there's anything inside it or not, before you put it on."
The doctor stood stockstill, like a soldier at the word, Halt.
"And I'll get the handcuffs," said the other runner, searching his coat-pockets.
The doctor bowed to him assentingly and forgivingly .
"Only oblige me with my hat, and I shall be quite ready for you," he said--paused for one moment, then repeated the words, "Quite ready," in a louder tone--and instantly disappeared through the floor!
I saw the two officers rush from opposite ends of the room to a great opening in the middle of it. The trap-door on which the doctor had been standing, and on which he had descended, closed up with a bang at the same moment; and a friendly voice from the lower regions called out gayly, "Good-by!"
The officers next made for the door of the room. It had been locked from the other side. As they tore furiously at the handle, the roll of the wheels of the doctor's gig sounded on the drive in front of the house; and the friendly voice called out once more, "Good-by!"
I waited just long enough to see the baffled officers unbarring the window shutters for the purpose of giving the alarm, before I closed the peephole, and with a farewell look at the distorted face of my prostrate enemy, Screw, left the room.
The doctor's study-door was open as I passed it on my way downstairs. The locked writing-desk, which probably contained the only clew to Alicia's retreat that I was likely to find, was in its usual place on the table. There was no time to break it open on the spot. I rolled it up in my apron, took it off bodily under my arm, and descended to the iron door on the staircase. Just as I was within sight of it, it was opened from the landing on the other side. I turned to run upstairs again, when a familiar voice cried, "Stop!" and looking round, I beheld Young File.
"All right!" he said. "Father's off with the governor in the gig, and the runners in hiding outside are in full cry after them. If Bow Street can get within pistol-shot of the blood mare, all I can say is, I give Bow Street full leave to fire away with both barrels! Where's Screw?"
"Gagged by me in the casting-room."
"Well done, you! Got all your things, I see, under your arm? Wait two seconds while I grab my money. Never mind the rumpus upstairs--there's nobody outside to help them; and the gate's locked, if there was."
He darted past me up the stairs. I could hear the imprisoned officers shouting for help from the top windows. Their reserve men must have been far away, by this time, in pursuit of the gig; and there was not much chance of their getting useful help from any stray countryman who might be passing along the road, except in the way of sending a message to Barkingham. Anyhow we were sure of a half hour to escape in, at the very least.
"Now then," said Young File, rejoining me; "let's be off by the back way through the plantations. How came you to lay your lucky hands on Screw?" he continued, when we had passed through the iron door, and had closed it after us.
"Tell me first how the doctor managed to make a hole in the floor just in the nick of time."
"What! did you see the trap sprung?"
"I saw everything."
"The devil you did! Had you any notion that signals were going on, all the while you were on the watch? We have a regular set of them in case of accidents. It's a rule that father, and me, and the doctor are never to be in the workroom together--so as to keep one of us always at liberty to act on the signals.--Where are you going to?"
"Only to get the gardener's ladder to help us over the wall. Go on."
"The first signal is a private bell--that means, Listen at the pipe. The next is a call down the pipe for 'Moses'--that means, Danger! Lock the door. 'Stilton Cheese' means, Put the Mare to; and 'Old Madeira' Stand by the trap. The trap works in that locked-up room you never got into; and when our hands are on the machinery, we are awkward enough to have a little accident with the luncheon tray. 'Quite Ready' is the signal to lower the trap, which we do in the regular theater-fashion. We lowered the doctor smartly enough, as you saw, and got out by the back staircase. Father went in the gig, and I let them out and locked the gates after them. Now you know as much as I've got breath to tell you."
We scaled the wall easily by the help of the ladder. When we were down on the other side, Young File suggested that the safest course for us was to separate, and for each to take his own way. We shook hands and parted.