He turned the handle and pulled, but it was fast.
He looked round the room, and saw another door at the farther end. He was halfway towards this when all the lights in the room went out. He was in complete darkness.
What he had thought to be a window at one end turned out to be a blank wall, so cunningly draped with curtains and ingeniously-shaped blinds as to delude the observer.
The real window, which looked out on to the street below, was heavily shuttered.
The absence of light was no inconvenience to him. He had a small electric lamp in his pocket, which he flashed round the room. It had been a tactical error on his part to put Black on his guard, but the temptation to give the big man a fright had been too great.
He realized that he was in a position of considerable danger. Save the young man he had seen in the street, and who in such an extraordinary manner had recognized him, nobody knew of his presence in that house.
He made a swift search of the room and listened intently at both doors, but he could hear nothing.
On the landing outside the door through which he had entered there were a number of antique Eastern arms hung on the wall. He had a slight hope that this scheme of decoration might have been continued in the room, but before he began his search he knew his quest was hopeless.
There would be no weapons here. He made a careful examination of the floor; he wanted to be on his guard against traps and pitfalls.
There was no danger from this. He sat down on the edge of a desk and waited.
He waited half an hour before the enemy gave a sign. Then, close to his ear, it seemed, a voice asked:
“Are you going to be sensible, constable?”
Frank flashed the rays of his lamp in the direction from which the voice came.
He saw what appeared to him to be a hanging Eastern lantern. He had already observed that the stem from which it hung was unusually thick; now he realized that the bell-shaped lamp was the end of a speaking-tube.
He guessed, and probably correctly, that the device had been hung rather to allow Black to overhear than for the purpose of communicating with the occupants of the room.
He made no reply. Again the question was repeated, and he raised his head and answered.
“Come and see,” he challenged.
All the time he had been waiting in the darkness his attention had been divided between the two doors. He was on the alert for the thin pencil of light which would show him the stealthy opening.
In some extraordinary manner he omitted to take into consideration the possibility of the outside lights being extinguished.
He was walking up and down the carpeted centre of the room, which was free of any impediment, when a slight noise behind him arrested his attention.
He had half turned when a noose was slipped over his body, a pair of desperate arms encircled his legs, and he was thrown violently to the floor.
He struggled, but it was against uneven odds. The lasso which had pinioned him prevented the free use of his arms. He found himself lying face downwards upon the carpet.
A handkerchief was thrust into his mouth, something cold and hard encircled his wrists and pulled them together. He heard a click, and knew that he was handcuffed behind.
“Pull him up,” said Black’s voice.
At that moment the lights in the room went on. Frank staggered to his feet, assisted ungently by Jakobs.
Black was there. Sparks was there, and a stranger Frank had seen enter the house was also there, but a silk handkerchief was fastened over the lower half of his face, and all that Frank could see was the upper half of a florid countenance and a pair of light blue eyes that twinkled shiftily.
“Put him on that sofa,” said Black. “Now,” he said, when his prisoner had been placed according to instructions, “I think you are going to listen to reason.”
It was impossible for Frank Fellowe to reply. The handkerchief in his mouth was an effective bar to any retort that might have risen in his mind, but his eyes, clear, unwavering, spoke in unmistakable language to the smiling man who faced him.
“My proposition is very simple,” said Black: “you’re to hold your tongue, mind your own business, accept a couple of hundred on account, and you will not be further molested. Refuse, and I’m going to put you where I can think about you.”
He smiled crookedly. “There are some five cellars in this house,” said Black; “if you are a student of history, as I am, Mr. Fellowe, you should read the History of the Rhine Barons. You would recognize then that I have an excellent substitute for the donjon keeps of old. You will be chained there by the legs, you will be fed according to the whims of a trusted custodian, who, I may tell you, is a very absentminded man, and there you will remain until you are either mad or glad—glad to accept our terms—or mad enough to be incarcerated in some convenient asylum, where nobody will take your accusations very seriously.”
Black turned his head.
“Take that gag out,” he said; “we will bring him into the other room. I do not think that his voice will be heard, however loudly he shouts, in there.”
Jakobs pulled the handkerchief roughly from Frank’s mouth. He was half pushed, half led, to the door of the boardroom, which was in darkness.
Black went ahead and fumbled for the switch, the others standing in the doorway.
He found the light at last, and then he stepped back with a cry of horror.
Well he might, for four strangers sat at the board—four masked men.
The door leading into the boardroom was a wide one. The three
