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slightly inward. The door did not budge. Tommy was annoyed. If he had to use

too much force, it would almost certainly creak. He waited until the voices rose a

little, then he tried again. Still nothing happened. He increased the pressure. Had

the beastly thing stuck? Finally, in desperation, he pushed with all his might. But

the door remained firm, and at last the truth dawned upon him. It was locked or

bolted on the inside.

For a moment or two Tommy's indignation got the better of him.

Well, I'm damned!" he said. "What a dirty trick!"

As his indignation cooled, he prepared to face the situation. Clearly the first thing

to be done was to restore the handle to its original position. If he let it go

suddenly, the men inside would be almost certain to notice it, so, with the same

infinite pains, he reversed his former tactics. All went well, and with a 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.

The Sinn Feiner was speaking. His rich Irish voice was unmistakable:

That's all very well. But more money is essential. No money--no results!"

The Secret Adversary