"No!" she said faintly. "No!"

"Then leave them to deal with that, and let us look elsewhere," he said.
"Come--after all, you don't know that he would be here."

"Where else should he be?" she answered. "I'm sure he's here, somewhere.
Help me!"

She turned away with him in another direction, and the two detectives,
with some of the firemen helping them, got to work on the place which
she had pointed out. Presently Polke directed the light of a bulls'-eye
on the dead face beneath them. He broke into an exclamation of
amazement.

"Who's this?" he demanded. "Look!"

One of the firemen bent closer, and suddenly glanced up at the
superintendent.

"It's young Chestermarke, sir," he said. "He must have shaved his beard
off. But--it's him!"

They took out what was to be found of Joseph Chestermarke at that
particular spot, and went on to search for the rest of him, and for
anything else. And eventually they came across Neale--unconscious, but
alive. His partial protection by the projecting iron walls of the
furnace had saved him; he had evidently been carried back with them when
the explosion occurred and wedged between them and the outer wall of the
laboratory. He came round to find a doctor administering restoratives to
him on one side, and Betty Fosdyke kneeling at the other. And suddenly
he remembered, and made a great shift to speak.

"All right!" he muttered at length. "Bit knocked out, that's all!
But--Horbury! Horbury's--somewhere! Get at him!"

They got at the missing bank manager at last--he, too, had been saved by
the thick wall which stood between him and the explosion. He was alive
and conscious when they had dug down to him--and his rescuers stared
from him to each other when they saw that the broken links of a steel
chain were still securely manacled about his waist.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE PRISONER SPEAKS

It was not until a week later that Neale, with a bandaged head and one
arm in a sling, and Betty Fosdyke, inexpressibly thankful that the
recent terrible catastrophe had at any rate brought relief in its train,
were allowed to visit Horbury for their first interview of more than a
few minutes' duration. Neale had made a quick recovery; beyond the
fracture of a small bone in his arm, some cuts on his head, and a
general shock to his system, he was little the worse for his experience.
But the elder victim had suffered more severely; he had suffered, too,
from a week's ill-treatment and sta