sigh of relief the young man rose to his feet. There was a
certain bulldog tenacity about Tommy that made him slow to admit
defeat. Checkmated for the moment, he was far from abandoning the
conflict. He still intended to hear what was going on in the
locked room. As one plan had failed, he must hunt about for
another.

He looked round him. A little farther along the passage on the
left was a second door. He slipped silently along to it. He
listened for a moment or two, then tried the handle. It yielded,
and he slipped inside.

The room, which was untenanted, was furnished as a bedroom. Like
everything else in the house, the furniture was falling to
pieces, and the dirt was, if anything, more abundant.

But what interested Tommy was the thing he had hoped to find, a
communicating door between the two rooms, up on the left by the
window. Carefully closing the door into the passage behind him,
he stepped across to the other and examined it closely. The bolt
was shot across it. It was very rusty, and had clearly not been
used for some time. By gently wriggling it to and fro, Tommy
managed to draw it back without making too much noise. Then he
repeated his former manoeuvres with the handle--this time with
complete success. The door swung open--a crack, a mere fraction,
but enough for Tommy to hear what went on. There was a velvet
portiere on the inside of this door which prevented him from
seeing, but he was able to recognize the voices with a reasonable
amount of accuracy.