bolt shot into place, Ford turned and looked at Miss
Dale.

"This is a hell of a note!" he said

III

Outside the locked door the voices of the two men rose in fierce
whispers. But Ford regarded them not at all. With the swiftness of
a squirrel caught in a cage, he darted on tiptoe from side to side
searching the confines of his prison. He halted close to Miss Dale and
pointed at the windows.

"Have you ever tried to loosen those bars?" he whispered.

The girl nodded and, in pantomime that spoke of failure, shrugged her
shoulders.

"What did you see?" demanded Ford hopefully.

The girl destroyed his hope with a shake of her head and a swift smile.

"Scissors," she said; "but they found them and took them away." Ford
pointed at the open grate.

"Where's the poker?" he demanded.

"They took that, too. I bent it trying to pry the bars. So they knew."

The man gave her a quick, pleased glance, then turned his eyes to the
door that led into the room that looked upon the street.

"Is that door locked?"

"No," the girl told him. "But the door from it into the hall is
fastened, like the other, with a spring lock and two bolts."

Ford cautiously opened the door into the room adjoining, and, except for
a bed and wash-stand, found it empty. On tiptoe he ran to the windows.
Sowell Street was deserted. He returned to Miss Dale, again closing the
door between the two rooms.

"The nurse," Miss Dale whispered, "when she is on duty, leaves that door
open so that she can watch me; when she goes downstairs, she locks and
bolts the door from that room to the hall. It's locked now."

"What's the nurse like?"

The girl gave a shudder that seemed to Ford sufficiently descriptive.
Her lips tightened in a hard, straight line.

"She's not human," she said. "I begged her to help me, appealed to her
in every way; then I tried a dozen times to get past her to the stairs."

"Well?"

The girl frowned, and with a gesture signified her surroundings.

"I'm still here," she said.

She bent suddenly forward and, with her hand on his shoulder, turned the
man so that he faced the cot.

"The mattress on that bed," she whispered, "rests on two iron rods. They
are loose and can be lifted. I planned to smash the lock, but the noise
would have brought Prothero. But you could defend yourself with one of
them."

Ford had already run to the cot and dropped to his knees. He found the
mattress supported on strips of iron resting