“Rory?” he asked, squinting at the figure as he continued up the steps.
“Aye. Aulay’s checking the passage for yer attacker,” Rory explained his absence.
Nodding, Conran took the last few steps up to the landing in silence, relieved to get off the deadly stairs.
“Ye’re rubbing yer head. Did ye hit it?” Rory asked, holding the torch toward him briefly as the Maclean moved up beside them.
“Aye, and ’tis pounding a bit,” Conran admitted in a mutter.
“Are ye all right?” Aulay asked, coming out of the shadows.
“I’ll survive,” Conran said with a shrug that made him wince. Damn, the bastard had hit him hard. His shoulder was killing him.
Aulay was silent for a minute, and then pointed out, “For someone to push ye, they had to have got around behind ye.”
“Aye,” Conran murmured, peering into the darkness of the passage.
“He must have slipped into one of the bedrooms until we passed and then come out behind us,” Fearghas said grimly.
“We should have stationed someone in each of the rooms before we entered the passage,” Conran said grimly. “But I thought from Tildy’s description that he was an outsider and would just flee.”
“What about her description made ye think he was an outsider?” Rory asked with interest.
Rather than answer, he asked, “Have ye seen anyone at Maclean wearing ratty clothes or who were so unkempt their hair was matted?”
“Nay,” Rory admitted, appearing surprised. “Everyone I’ve seen seems to make an effort to look clean and presentable.”
“Aye, me wife always insisted on it,” Fearghas growled. “She said filth spreads disease and she’d no’ have the servants and soldiers bringing in lice and fleas and illness.” He sighed, and then admitted, “After she died, I probably would have let well enough alone and allowed the servants and soldiers to carry on as they wished, but Evina was her mother’s daughter. She insisted things continue as they had before.”
“So, the attacker has to be an outsider,” Aulay murmured.
Fearghas ran a hand through his wiry hair in agitation. “I just can no’ see how an outsider found out about the passage?”
“Ye say ye only told Evina and Gavin?” Aulay asked.
“Aye.”
Conran frowned. “Then one of them must have told someone else.”
The Maclean scowled at him for the suggestion. “Nay. Neither of them would tell anyone.”
“Perhaps when they were children,” Rory suggested gently.
“Neither of them kenned as children,” Fearghas countered. “I did no’ tell Evina until she was sixteen. Gavin either. I only told him just months ago on his birthday. Neither of them would reveal the secret to another. I’d stake me life on it,” he said with certainty.
When no one had any other suggestions as to how an outsider could know, Conran shifted wearily and said, “We’ll need to station men in each room with an entrance to the passage so that he can’t use them to avoid us as we search the passages again.”
“Or I could just lock off the entrances from each room,” the Maclean suggested.
Conran glanced at him sharply. “They lock from the inside?”
“Well, aye. Ye have to be able to secure them for just such a situation as this,” he pointed out.
“O’ course,” Conran agreed with a wry smile, but then his expression grew serious and he said, “Ye shouldn’t go alone in case he’s in one of the rooms right now.”
“He probably is,” Aulay said now. “He pushed ye from up here, and neither Rory nor I encountered him on our return along the path around the castle. He must have slipped into one of the rooms after pushing ye.”
“Aye, and he can slip out again as we enter the rooms to lock the entrances, unless someone is here,” Conran pointed out. “Will ye and Rory—?”
“We’ll guard the passage until ye get each of the entrances locked,” Aulay assured him.
“Thank ye,” Conran murmured. “Then I’ll accompany Laird Maclean. We’ll try to be quick.”
When the two men merely nodded, Conran turned to head up the passage.
“Con?”
Pausing, he glanced back in question, noting his eldest brother’s serious expression in the light from the torch. “Aye?”
“Ye need to start with the Maclean’s room, and move this way. The passage starts there.”
“Aye, he’s right,” Fearghas murmured behind him.
Conran didn’t bother mentioning that he’d thought of that himself; he merely asked the Maclean, “Ye can open it from this side, can ye no’?”
“Aye. Follow me.” The old man squeezed past him and led the way to the end of the passage. It took them away from the light