“I wonder,” said the chaplain, “I wonder if the noise can possibly be coming from the dungeon where the young women hikers were shut up.”

“I never saw that dungeon. Where is it?”

“Immediately underneath where we are now, though there are two rooms in between. If that noise is Mr Royde, he must have exceptionally powerful lungs.”

“Oh, he has,” said Carrie eagerly. “You wouldn’t think it to hear him speak ordinarily, but Chester has one of the biggest voices anywhere. I suppose that’s why he was a cheer-leader at college. Oh, Mr. Fletcher, do let’s go and let the poor boy out.”

“But that’s the problem,” the chaplain replied. “The keys of the dungeon have been missing ever since the night of the Twelfth. Ah, wait a moment. I’m on the track of the solution. The hikers carried off the keys with them. Dear me, dear me, what an exceedingly cunning revenge.”

“Revenge?” Carrie cried. “Oh, they haven’t done anything horrible to Chester? They haven’t cut off his nose or blinded him or anything like that?”

“He would never be able to make a noise like that unless he were in possession of all his faculties,” the chaplain declared emphatically.

“But how are we going to get him out?” Carrie fussed. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock and he must have been shut up since this afternoon. I can’t think how nobody heard him calling.”

At this point the howling from below took on a fresh intensity of sound.

“Mr. Fletcher, Mr Fletcher, we must get him out. Oh, dear, why did everybody go off to look for him in the glen when he was here in the Castle all the while? Think what a terribly long business it was to get you out of the other dungeon. What are we going to do?”

The chaplain smiled benignly.

“We are going to release Mr Royde in a very few moments,” he announced.

“But we’ll never break in the door.”

“We’re not going to break in the door; we’re going to use the secret passage.”

“Secret passage?”

The chaplain went across to a cabinet set in the wall. He turned a handle to open what was in reality a door and disclosed the narrow stone stairs of Gothic romance.

“I’m afraid you’ll find the descent will mean sweeping off a good deal of dust and cobwebs,” said Mr Fletcher. “But I dare say you won’t mind that in such a good cause.”

“Oh no, of course I won’t, Mr Fletcher. Oh, listen to poor Chester now.”

With the door at the head of the stairs open and a channel to conduct the sound the noise was certainly impressive.