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Page 95
Thereupon he acted: with the result, as has appeared, that Phil
Abingdon, hatless, without her furs, breathless and more
frightened than she had ever been in her life, presently found
herself driving a luxurious Rolls Royce out of a roofless barn on
to the highroad, and down the slope to Claybury station.
It was at about this time, or a little later, that Paul Harley
put into execution a project which he had formed. The ventilator
above the divan, which he had determined to be the spy-hole
through which his every movement was watched, had an ornamental
framework studded with metal knobs. He had recently discovered an
electric bell-push in the centre panel of the massive door of his
prison.
Inwardly on fire, imagining a thousand and one horrors centring
about the figure of Phil Abingdon, but retaining his outward calm
by dint of a giant effort, he pressed this bell and waited.
Perhaps two minutes elapsed. Then the glass doors beyond the
gilded screen were drawn open, and the now-familiar voice spoke:
"Mr. Paul Harley?"
"Yes," he replied, "I have made my final decision."
"And that is?"
"I agree."
"You are wise," the voice replied. "A statement will be placed
before you for signature. When you have signed it, ring the bell
again, and in a few minutes you will be free."
Vaguely he detected the speaker withdrawing. Thereupon, heaving a
loud sigh, he removed his coat, looked about him as if in quest
of some place to hang it, and finally, fixing his gaze upon the
studded grating, stood upon the divan and hung his coat over the
spy-hole! This accomplished, he turned.
The table was slowly sinking through the gap in the floor
beneath.
Treading softly, he moved forward and seated himself cross-legged
upon it! It continued to descend, and he found himself in
absolute darkness.
Nicol Brinn ran on to the veranda and paused for a moment to take
breath. The window remained open, as Phil Abingdon had left it.
He stepped into the room with its elegant Persian appointments.
It was empty. But as he crossed the threshold, he paused,
arrested by the sound of a voice.
"A statement will be placed before you," said the voice, "and
when you have signed it, in a few minutes you will be free."
Nicol Brinn silently dropped flat at the back of a divan, as Rama
Dass, coming out of the room which communicated with the golden
screen, made his way toward the distant door. Having one eye
raised above the top of the cushions, Nicol Brinn watched him,
recognizing the man who had accompanied the swooning lady. She
had been deposited, then, at no great distance from the house.
He was to learn later that poor Mrs. McMurdoch, in her
artificially induced swoon, had been left in charge of a
hospitable cottager, while her solicitous Oriental escort had
sped away in quest of a physician. But at the moment matters of
even greater urgency engaged his attention.
Creeping forward to the doorway by which Rama Dass had gone out,
Nicol Brinn emerged upon a landing from which stairs both
ascended and descended. Faint sounds of footsteps below guided
him, and although from all outward seeming he appeared to saunter
casually down, his left hand was clutching the butt of a Colt
automatic.
He presently found himself in a maze of basements--kitchens of
the establishment, no doubt. The sound of footsteps no longer
guided him. He walked along, and in a smaller deserted pantry
discovered the base of a lift shaft in which some sort of small
elevator worked. He was staring at this reflectively, when, for
the second time in his adventurous career, a silken cord was
slipped tightly about his throat!
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