He reached the other end of the vista, having traversed three
enormous chambers, of which the middle one was the most enormous and the
most gorgeous. There were high windows everywhere to his right, and to
his left, in every chamber, double doors with gilt handles of a peculiar
shape. Windows and doors, with equal splendour, were draped in hangings
of brocade. Through the windows he had glimpses of the gardens in their
autumnal colours, but no glimpse of a gardener. Then a carriage flew
past the windows at the end of the suite, and he had a very clear though
a transient view of two menials on the box-seat; one of those menials he
knew must be Jock. Hence Jock must have escaped from the state suite by
one of the numerous doors.
Denry tried one door after another, and they were all fastened firmly on
the outside. The gilded handles would turn, but the lofty and ornate
portals would not yield to pressure. Mystified and startled, he went
back to the place from which he had begun his explorations, and was even
more seriously startled, and more deeply mystified to find nothing but a
blank wall where he had entered. Obviously he could not have penetrated
through a solid wall.
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