pect would most certainly
have cost him his life.

And he felt that as yet he could not afford to die.

One by one he drove in the nails, and as he worked at his gruesome task
he heard the faintest rustle on the landing without--the faintest sound
of a soft breath cautiously drawn in, of a light foot very carefully set
down.

Deede Dawson plainly heard nothing; indeed, no ear less acute and less
well-trained than Dunn's could have caught sounds that were so slight
and low, but he, listening between each stroke of his hammer, was sure
that it was Ella who had followed them, and that she crouched upon the
landing without, watching and listening.

Did that mean, he wondered, that she, too, knew? Or was it merely
natural curiosity; hostile in part, perhaps, since evidently the
relations between her and her stepfather were not too friendly--a desire
to know what task there could be in the attics so late at night for
which Deede Dawson had such need of his captive's help?

Or was it by any chance because she wished to know how things went with
him, and what was to be his fate?

In any case, Dunn was sure that Ella had followed then, and was on the
landing without.

He drove home the last nail and stood up. "That's done," he said.

"And well done," said Deede Dawson. "Well done--Charley Wright."

He spoke the name softly and lingeringly, and then all at once he began
to laugh, a low and somewhat dreadful laughter that had in it no mirth
at all, and that sounded horrible and strange in the chill emptiness of
the attic.

Leaning one hand on the packing-case that served as the coffin of his
dead friend, Dunn swore a silent oath to exact full retribution, and
henceforth to put that purpose on a level with the mission on which
originally he had come.

Aloud, and in a grumbling tone he said:

"What's the matter with my name? It's a name like any other. What's
wrong with it?"

"What should there be?" flashed Deede Dawson in reply.

"I don't know," Dunn answered. "You keep repeating it so, that's all."

"It's a very good name," Deede Dawson said. "An excellent name. But
it's not suitable. Not here." He began to laugh again and then stopped
abruptly.

"Do you know, I think you had better choose another?" he said.

"It's all one to me," declared Dunn. "If Charley Wright don't suit, how
will Robert Dunn do? I knew a man of that name once."

"It's a better name than Charley Wright," said Deede Dawson. "We'll call
y