.

"Come, you, Griggs and Red, and push that desk down a bit so that I can
stand on it." The two men bent to the task, heedless of Mary's frantic
protest.

"No! no! no! no! no, Joe!"

Red, however, suddenly straightened from the desk and stood motionless,
listening. He made a slight hissing noise that arrested the attention of
the others and held them in moveless silence.

"I hear something," he whispered. He went to the keyhole of the door
leading into the passage. Then he whispered again, "And it's coming this
way."

At the words, Garson snapped his fingers. The room was plunged in
darkness.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE NOISELESS DEATH.

There was absolute silence in the library after the turning of the
switch that brought the pall of darkness. Long seconds passed, then a
little noise--the knob of the passage door turning. As the door swung
open, there came a gasping breath from Mary, for she saw framed in the
faint light that came from the single burner in the corridor the slender
form of her husband, Dick Gilder. In the next instant he had stepped
within the room and pulled to the door behind him. And in that same
instant Chicago Red had pounced on his victim, the huge hand clapped
tight over the young man's mouth. Even as his powerful arm held the
newcomer in an inescapable embrace, there came a sound of scuffling feet
and that was all. Finally the big man's voice came triumphantly.

"I've got him."

"It's Dick!" The cry came as a wail of despair from the girl.

At the same moment, Garson flashed his torch, and the light fell
swiftly on young Gilder, bowed to a kneeling posture before the couch,
half-throttled by the strength of Chicago Red. Close beside him, Mary
looked down in wordless despair over this final disaster of the night.
There was silence among the men, all of whom save the captor himself
were gathered near the fireplace.

Garson retired a step farther before he spoke his command, so that,
though he held the torch still, he like the others was in shadow. Only
Mary was revealed clearly as she bent in alarm toward the man she had
married. It was borne in on the forger's consciousness that the face of
the woman leaning over the intruder was stronger to hold the prisoner
and to prevent any outcry than the might of Chicago Red himself, and so
he gave the order.

"Get away, Red."

The fellow let go his grip obediently enough, though with a trifle of
regret, since he gloried in his physical prowe