Isaac Coffran was his uncle's enemy! The old man who had appeared so friendly had gained the secret after all. It was his messenger who had stolen the package and the envelopes!
Rising, Duncan felt that former feeling of exhilaration. His mind, suddenly responsive, grasped the details of what had happened.
Some one had visited his uncle. In his delirium, the dying man had fancied that Bruce had come at last.
He had revealed the message which he had intended for his nephew.
It could not have been Coffran. Even at the point of death, Uncle Harvey would have recognized his enemy. It could not have been the ape-faced man. It must have been a third person - an agent of Coffran's. It did not matter who it had been. The vital fact was that the secret had been learned.
While he, Bruce Duncan, had been ignorant of his uncle's enmity toward Isaac Coffran, there had been no need for murder. But now, since Bruce had admitted that he intended to detect the thief, he had become a menace.
He seized the letter and turned to the second page. He followed the denunciation that his uncle had written from the point where he had left off.
- the man who will continue to keep my trust.
When your name is mentioned, he will be warned against another - your companion in crime, Bernardo Chefano - whose twisted lips will reveal his identity, no matter what disguise or alias he may employ.
Chefano is clever, but you are cunning. Yet I defy you both and I -
Dizziness was seizing Duncan. He had taken the chair again. He rose to his feet and gasped. The letter fluttered to the floor. Bending slowly forward, Duncan lowered his head inch by inch. Gradually he felt the sensation of weakness returning.
He rushed to the door. It was locked. Then he stood motionless, his mind alternating between fear and anger.
The room was a death trap! Locked in this small compartment, he was to be the victim of Isaac Coffran's fiendish methods. That was cruelly plain.
From somewhere - from hidden spots about the room, a slow, deadly poison gas was entering the compartment. It must be akin to carbon monoxide - a vapor that could not be sensed by smell. Heavier than air, it was creeping upward from the floor, gradually overcoming him.
The last letter that revealed the true Isaac Coffran would never have been reached by Bruce Duncan.
It was intended that he should die before he knew the truth. Now he had learned it. But to what avail?
He could cry for help; he could batter against the solid door. These efforts would all be futile; they would add to the misery of death.
He went to the desk and pressed the button. He waited. There was no response. Of course not. Isaac Coffran had probably received the signal and was gloating.
The air was stifling. Life, Bruce realized, was a matter of short duration, now. He might prolong it by standing upon a chair, with his head against the low ceiling. That would mean twenty minutes more, perhaps half an hour.
The little alcove attracted his attention. There was a button beside it - perhaps another signal. He staggered across the room and pressed the button. There was no result.
Should he lie on the floor and die? It might be best, he thought, but the ordeal was hard to face. No, he would defy Isaac Coffran to the last moment. He stood upon the chair and braced himself against the wall.
The relief was not great. Duncan fancied he could hear the insidious gas hissing into the death chamber.
Perhaps it was coming more rapidly now; possibly his imagination was ruling him.
He looked at his watch. Quarter past eleven. The room was beginning to whirl, so it seemed. He was losing his balance. In another minute, he would topple from his place of temporary security, and all would be over.
A sharp click came from across the room. He looked toward the oddly shaped nook in the corner. His eyes stared in sudden fascination. Was it fancy? No, it was reality! The corner section of the room, with its narrow opening, was slowly descending. Following it, from the ceiling, was emerging a sheet of solid wall.
For the fraction of a second, Bruce Duncan hesitated. In that infinitesimal space of time, a rush of conflicting thoughts filled his brain. Another trap! No trap could be worse than this. A terrible death! All death was terrible. A chance for life! It was a hope at least.
He plunged from the chair, holding his breath as he fell to the floor. As in a nightmare, in which muscles fail in their task, he fought his way across the room. The descending compartment was more than halfway down, yet he crawled through the breach, then slumped in a heap, completely inside the downward-moving alcove.
His smarting eyes caught one last glimpse of the gas-filled room. Then the opening was closed. He was in total darkness - a terrible darkness that seemed to smother him for an instant.
He opened his mouth and gasped; he breathed deeply. Through his nostrils came the reviving tonic of sweet air that brought relief to his bursting lungs.
CHAPTER XIV. A NEW MENACE
IT was a long trip down. The slow, regular movement of the floor beneath him became a relief to Bruce Duncan. He realized that he was in a small elevator between walls of solid masonry. Perhaps he was going to a new ordeal. But future fear could not overcome the present hope that he had gained in escaping from the poisoned atmosphere above.
The darkness continued for a while. Then a crack of light appeared by the floor. It seemed to rise slowly upward as though it were a curtain of illumination. Bruce realized that he had reached the bottom of the elevator shaft.
The light came from a large flashlight that was pointed in his direction. As the brilliance moved up and down under the control of the man who held it, Duncan fancied that he could make out the form of the person behind it.
Some inquisitor, he supposed. Isaac Coffran or his henchman, Pedro, waiting to seize him. He felt helpless; the gas that he had inhaled had left him weak.
The little elevator stopped. Looking upward, Duncan realized that he had reached a low-vaulted room in the cellar of the building. Then a hand gripped him. He was dragged forth to the floor.
The man was bending over him; the flashlight moved upward. From its new position, it revealed the other person. A gasp of relief escaped Bruce Duncan's lips as he recognized the dark anxious face above him.
'Abdul!' he exclaimed.
'Yes, sahib,' affirmed the Hindu, in his quiet voice.
'How did you come here?' questioned Bruce, as he sat upon the floor. 'How did you find me?'
'I shall tell you later, burra sahib,' replied Abdul. 'Let us first leave this place of danger.'
Duncan tried to rise to his feet. He sank back, momentarily exhausted. His eyes followed the glare of the Hindu's flashlight as it swept about them.
They were in a narrow, low-roofed passage, which terminated in the elevator at one end, and in an arched opening at the other. The Hindu's light was focused on the exit.
'Through there I came,' said Abdul. 'There we shall go. It is safe there, sahib.'
He extended one arm. Bruce Duncan steadied himself and rose with the Hindu's aid. Together they started slowly toward the opening that led to safety.
Just as they reached the low arch, Duncan faltered. As he paused, Abdul stood still beside him. The wait was only a brief second, but before Duncan had advanced another step, some huge device dropped into the glare of the light. There was a swish of cold air, followed by a sharp clang. Two feet in front of the men appeared a solid wall.
Duncan reached out and pressed his hand against hard metal.
'A curtain of steel!' he exclaimed. 'A solid sheet of metal! It would have struck us, Abdul, if we had not stopped.'
'It has closed our way to safety,' replied the Hindu, in his even voice. 'We are trapped, burra sahib.'
Duncan's rescuer turned the flashlight in all directions. Only the elevator remained as a means of exit. The walls of the room were solid and close together; the steel curtain filled the archway completely. Not even a crack was visible.
