“Dead or alive, boss?”

“Alive, I guess. Although I doubt anyone would mind if you cut out his tongue. Now, don’t just stand there! Go, go, go!”

The footsteps swarmed away, and in the secret passage everyone breathed.

“We’ll try for an exit farther along,” Miss Brown whispered.

The young pirates turned about. Ned took three steps in the shadows and collided with a body that squeaked like an oversize mouse.

“Who the hell?” Ned hissed.

“It is I, Frederick Bassingthwaite.”

“Good God, is half the bloody abbey in this crawlspace?” Alex muttered.

“I was trying to hide behind a cabinet,” Frederick explained, “and fell through the wall. Someone came into the room shortly thereafter, so I followed this malodorous tunnel, hoping for an escape from the devil’s pit of—”

“Turn around and lead the way back, there’s a good chap,” Ned told him.

“I? But you are the one with a weapon; you should go first. I’ll accompany Cecilia and protect her from harm.”

“What with, a sharp-edged handkerchief?”

Frederick huffed. “Blaggard!”

“Dandy,” Ned retorted.

“Rake.”

“Sure. Better that than a twit.”

“You aren’t fit to tie her laces.”

“I’ve already untied them. Try again.”

Frederick gasped. “Be glad I don’t have the ancestral Bassingthwaite sword with me, sir, or I would challenge you to a duel this very moment!”

“You can borrow my sword if you like. I’m sure I have a butter knife somewhere I could use myself. It might hurt a little more when I cut out your heart, though.”

“At least I have a heart!”

Alex leaned forward. “Ned? Fred? Small word of advice? You might want to stop fighting about which of you is taking the lead, considering Miss Bassingthwaite has already taken it and is about fifty feet ahead of us by now.”

The men promptly turned and, with a brief skirmish of elbows, hurried along the passage after Cecilia. Alex strode after them, and the Wisteria Society, resembling nothing so much as a smirk in the darkness, followed.

Occasionally they heard voices or footsteps, or knuckles bashing against the wall, and they stopped until silence returned. Finally they came upon a sliver of light and, after listening against the wall, agreed to risk it. Ned hooked his fingers in the slight gap and cautiously pushed the door ajar.

Immediately before him stood a drinks cabinet. Ned hunkered down behind it, listening. Silence reassured him, but even so he peered around the cabinet’s edge, gun poised. He was in a sitting room. Its lamps were doused, drapes closed, and the darkness clung damply to the silence like a ghost. No one was inside.

With a sigh of relief he stood and was opening his mouth to call the ladies out when something soft but heavy whacked him in the head. He spun about, dazed, and was whacked again. He had no opportunity to aim his gun at the assailant before he was pounded to his knees, and all he could do was cover his head with his arms in futile self-defense against what appeared to be assassination by pillow.