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.