Читать книгу The Green Archer онлайн

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"Give me that lamp," said Bellamy. He pulled his pistol from his pocket and went cautiously down the circular staircase, followed by the two men. At the foot was another door, which was unlocked, and this led into an annex of the castle kitchen—a vaulted chamber used as a storehouse for provisions. Both doors which led from this apartment were bolted from the inside. Mr. Bellamy cast the light of his lantern up the broad chimney, but saw nothing.

"He couldn't have gone this way," he grumbled, and then irritably: "There was no other way he could have gone!"

The light of dawn was in the eastern sky when the search was finally finished. Mr. Bellamy sat before the newly kindled fire in the library drinking a cup of scalding hot coffee with savage, noisy gulps, whilst his secretary sat silently, and a little wearily, watching him. He stifled a yawn, not so furtively but the old man noticed it.

"There's something behind this Green Archer business, Savini," he said, breaking a silence that had lasted the greater part of an hour. "A ghost! Pah! I believe neither in ghosts nor devils. There is nothing on God Almighty's earth, under or over it, that can scare me! I am devil-proof and ghost-proof, Savini, and that fellow has got to be bullet-proof to get away with it if I ever find him! Well?" He swung his head round sharply toward the door.