d staid as he was, pressed another button on
the table--a button he had hitherto neglected touching--and glanced
around to see what color the light would now assume.

But the yellow glare remained. The investigation which the apparatus had
gone through had probably disarranged the wires. With a shrug he was
moving off, when he suddenly made a hurried gesture, directing the
attention of the expert to a fact for which neither of them was
prepared. The opening which led into the antechamber, and which was the
sole means of communication with the rest of the house, was slowly
closing. From a yard's breadth it became a foot; from a foot it became
an inch; from an inch----

"Well, that is certainly the contrivance of a lazy man," laughed the
expert. "Seated in his chair here, he can close his door at will. No
shouting after a deaf servant, no awkward stumbling over rugs to shut it
himself. I don't know but I approve of this contrivance, only----" here
he caught a rather serious expression on Mr. Gryce's face--"the slide
seems to be of a somewhat curious construction. It is not made of wood,
as any sensible door ought to be, but of----"

"Steel," finished Mr. Gryce in an odd tone. "This is the strangest thing
yet. It begins to look as if Mr. Adams was daft on electrical
contrivances."

"And as if we were prisoners here," supplemented the other. "I do not
see any means for drawing this slide back."

"Oh, there's another button for that, of course," Mr. Gryce carelessly
remarked.

But they failed to find one.

"If you don't object," observed Mr. Gryce, after five minutes of useless
search, "I will turn a more cheerful light upon the scene. Yellow does
not seem to fit the occasion."

"Give us rose, for unless you have some one on the other side of this
steel plate, we seem likely to remain here till morning."

"There is a man upstairs whom we may perhaps make hear, but what does
this contrivance portend? It has a serious look to me, when you consider
that every window in these two rooms has been built up almost under the
roof."

"Yes; a very strange look. But before engaging in its consideration I
should like a breath of fresh air. I cannot do anything while in
confinement. My brain won't work."

Meanwhile Mr. Gryce was engaged in examining the huge plate of steel
which served as a barrier to their egress. He found that it had been
made--certainly at great expense--to fit the curve of the walls through
which it pas