or? If they don't find you they'll search until
they do. You must tell them that I'm not in the place--that you haven't
seen me. That'll satisfy 'em and they'll go away quickly."

"It's you that's the fool. Somebody must have seen you enter--how else
did they know you were here?"

Another ominous splintering noise, then the sharp crack of ripping wood.

"No more of this damned nonsense," muttered Rofflash, and swinging his
arm he gave Mountchance a blow with the flat of his hand, toppling him
over. Without waiting to see what injury he had inflicted Rofflash
rushed to a tall cabinet, entered it and closed the doors after him just
as a yell of savage joy was raised outside. The iron bar was still
across the entrance but there was a jagged aperture above and below. A
couple of seconds more and the cabinet was empty. Rofflash had
disappeared through a secret door at the back.

Mountchance's house, as already mentioned, was really an adjunct of St.
Thomas's chapel, so far at least as the foundation was concerned. This
foundation had once formed the lower chapel or crypt and was then the
only distinctive relic of the bridge built by Peter of Colechurch, in
the thirteenth century. Rofflash descended the uneven loose bricks of
the narrow winding staircase into the dungeon-like apartment. The stone
floor was not much above the level of the river at high tide and a
lancet window on each side of the bridge admitted a glimmer of light in
the day time. It was now pitch dark.

Rofflash groped his way over the slimy floor to a small door which he
knew opened on to an abutment between two arches. He only did this by
feeling the wall as he went. He hoped when outside to hail a passing
wherry. At any rate it was unlikely his hiding place would be discovered
by any of the mob.

In the meantime the shop and room above were filled with a rabble more
than half of which was out for plunder. Mountchance was lying on the
floor unconscious, but no one bothered about him. In the opinion of some
it was perhaps as well, as he would be unable to prevent them doing as
they liked. This opinion was not held by Sally Salisbury. She was
convinced Rofflash was in the house though she had not seen him actually
enter. It angered her to think that Mountchance who could have told her
anything was as good as dead. She called upon the crowd to search for
the murderer but they turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. They were
much more interested in looting