Rufus MacIan hurried over to make inquiries. Édouard de Gex, after the obligatory rolling of the eyes, looked about and noted, for the first time, that Jack was nowhere to be seen. In the commotion of de Gex’s descent upon the White Tower, Jack must have taken the matter of the banner into his own hands. He must then have gone down stairs; and the nearest way down would have been through a door, now standing open, in the round turret that held together the northeastern vertex of the building. That turret loomed above the place where MacIan was interrogating the bloody-nosed freckle-boy, and it was obvious that MacIan would be headed that way in a moment.