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“At least you got us in here,” Scar says approvingly. To Fifer and Shorty, he says, “I’ll take Miko here and go to the left. You guys go to the right and we’ll meet back here in ten minutes.

“Alright,” Fifer says as he and Shorty begin moving down to the right.

Scar takes the lantern and says, “Let me go first.”

“Okay,” replies Miko as he relinquishes the lantern. Behind them, he can hear Fifer mutter, “Wish we had the lantern.”

Going down to the left, he follows behind Scar as he makes his way further into the house. “We need to find a crack of light that may indicate where another secret door lies,” he tells him.

“But it’s night,” counters Scar.

“A light will indicate a room where someone is,” he explains. “That’s also likely to be where James is being held.”

“Good thought,” he says. As they move along, he periodically closes the shutter so they can better tell where light may be coming in from. When the ten minutes is about up, they spot a sliver of light coming from a crack in the wall. Excited, they move closer to it and discover a small sliding panel set into the wall.

Ever so slowly, Scar slides it open and they look through the opening into what appears to be a bedroom, an open doorway leads from the bedroom out into another room. A lit candle sits on a small table next to a bed. Scar sees night clothes for a lady laid out upon the bed. Suddenly from the outer room, a woman walks into the bedroom, naked as the day she was born. She comes to the bed and begins putting on the nightclothes.

Scar watches for a moment before sliding the panel closed. Whispering very quietly, he says, “Let’s go back to the others.” When he gets a nod from Miko, he leads them back.

“What did you see?” asks Miko when they’ve moved further away from the spy panel.

“It was a bedroom,” he replies with a grin. “Nothing of interest.”

“Oh.”

They’re the first ones back at the meeting spot and wait several anxious minutes before Fifer and Shorty return. “Anything?” asks Scar.

In the dim light of the lantern, they see Fifer shake his head, “No. We found one room with a candle burning, but no one was around.”

“Us too,” he says.

“Now what?” asks Shorty. “We’re running out of time.”

Just then, they hear footsteps approaching from the direction Shorty and Fifer had just investigated. Closing the shutter quickly, they stand there in silence as the footsteps approach. Whoever it is, they’re walking in darkness so must know this way well.

Fifer is standing closest to the approaching footsteps, and when they’re almost upon him he strikes out with his fist, trying to connect with the person’s chin. Instead, he catches the person a glancing blow to the side of the head, causing the man to cry out in shock.

Light suddenly fills the hidden corridor as Scar throws open the shutter. The man sees them standing there, blood running down the side of his face from where Fifer had struck him. He quickly turns and begins running down the corridor away from them when Fifer tackles him and they both crash to the floor.

The man starts to call for help and Fifer knees him in the stomach, silencing his cry as the wind is knocked out of him. Before he has a chance to recover, a knife is being held to his throat and Fifer says in a quiet voice, “Make a sound and I’ll cut your throat. Understand?”

Gasping, trying to get his lungs working again, the man nods. “Who are you?” Scar asks from behind Fifer.

When the man finally gets his breath back, he says, “Gregory, servant to Lord Colerain.” He looks from one face to another with fear in his eyes.

“Is he here?” Fifer asks.

Shaking his head, Gregory replies, “No, he left a half hour ago.”

Fifer glances to Scar and then returns his attention to Gregory and asks, “Where did he go?”

“What are you going to do?” he asks fearfully.

“Just answer the question!” Fifer says, pressing the knife more firmly against his throat.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“We’re looking for a friend of ours who may be held captive here,” Miko says to him. “Is he here?