“Don’t you know? Up the closet chimney.”
“Ay,” he said, dropping his own voice in tacit response to the warning
in mine, “but not to sweep it?”
“No,” I said; “to escape by it.”
His hand went up to his glasses. He glared at me through their
restored focus.
Watchful of him, lest, before I could explain, he should silence me
provisionally with some stunning blow, I ventured to approach him a
little nearer.
“There’s killing,” I whispered, “going on down there--a poor old man
in a grey coat.”
He started violently, and pulling his jaw down, uttered a sort of
mechanical crow, and let it go again.
“Grey!” he muttered. “It’s the steward, then. He didn’t give _me_
away, did he?”
I shook my head dumbly. He was readjusting his glasses to meet the
answer.
“Ay,” he gulped, swallowing with relief, “poor Mackenzie! And to think
that for all his loyalty he must burn!”