their attention to the door.

Then Mrs. Higgs made a sign to Carrie, who went out of the room and into
the outhouse. As Max turned to watch her, the light went out.

By this time Carrie had shut the door behind her, and Max was, as he
supposed, alone with the old woman. He was startled, and he made an
attempt to find the door leading into the outhouse and to follow the
girl; but this was not so easy.

While he was fumbling for the door, he found himself suddenly seized in
a strong grip, and, taken unawares, he was unable to cope with an
assailant so dexterous, so rapid in his movements, that, before Max had
time to do more than realize that he was attacked, he was forced through
an open doorway and flung violently to the ground.

Then a door was slammed, and there was silence.

As Max scrambled to his feet his hand, touched something clammy and
cold.

It was a hand--a dead hand.

Max uttered a cry of horror. He remembered all that he had forgotten. He
knew now that the girl's story was true, and that he was shut in the
front room with the body of the murdered man.

CHAPTER XI.

A TRAP.

Max tried to find the door by which he had been thrown into the room.
The upper portion was of glass, he supposed, remembering the red curtain
which hung on the other side of it. But although he felt with his hands
in the place where he supposed the door to be, he found nothing but
wooden shelves, such as are usually found lining the walls of shops, and
planks of rough wood.

He paused, looked around him, hoping that when his eyes got used to the
darkness some faint ray of light coming either through the boarded-up
front or through the glass upper half of the door, would enable him to
take his bearings, or, at any rate, to help him avoid that uncanny
"something" in the middle of the floor.

But the blackness was absolute. Strain his eyes as he might, there was
no glimmer of light in any direction to guide him, and he had used up
his last match. So he went to work again with his hands. These rough
planks were placed perpendicularly against the wall to a width of about
three feet--the width of the door. Passing his fingers slowly all round
them, he ascertained that they reached to the floor, and to a height of
about seven feet above it. Evidently, thought he, it was the door itself
which opened into the shop which had been carefully boarded up. As soon
as he felt sure of this, he dealt at the planks a tremendous blow