own to grab you."

Mark's heart jumped like a wounded stag. He looked around wildly. Was
this to be the end of it all? Was he to lie in jail while Elaine went to
her death, back there in Bourbon France?

His captor was speaking again:

"I didn't dream I could have this much luck! To see that slut Elaine
dead--that was the height of my ambition. But now--to have you sent to
the penitentiary for burglary--"

The words ended in a roar of laughter. It died, and Vance went on, his
tone grim and deadly:

"It's time you dropped that picture, Carter. Drop it--and put your hands
up!"

The picture! The one link between 1942 and 1780!

"Drop it!"

Slowly, Mark's hands relaxed. He let the picture fall to the floor.

"Now--raise your hands and walk over to the corner. Stand with your face
to the wall!"

Mark moved like one paralyzed. His hands came up as if they were
weighted with lead. His brown eyes were fixed on the shadowy finger back
of the flashlight, and impotent rage and hatred seethed within them.

Yet what could he do? Jump Vance? Try to wrest the inevitable gun from
the antiquarian's hand?

Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head. No. It was impossible. His
slug-riddled body would pitch lifeless to the floor before he could take
two steps forward.

Nor was it mere fear of death that made him halt. That he would have
faced, and gladly.

But what actually held him back was that such a suicidal attempt would
avail him nothing. It would bring him no nearer his real goal than
before: Elaine still would meet that awful doom which history had
recorded as her fate!

"Turn around, damn you! Get over to the corner! Put your face to the
wall!"

Ever so slowly, Mark turned. His brain was pounding with frantic effort
as he strove to find some flaw in the awful wall of circumstance that
rose about him.

* * * * *

And then he saw the curtain!

It was just an ordinary curtain, buff-colored and a trifle stiff with
starch.

But it hung in front of the window he had opened as an emergency exit
when he came in. At the moment, it swayed ever so slightly in the ripple
of draft.

Most important of all, that window was set in the wall against which
Adrian Vance had directed that he stand. The corner Vance had indicated
was a step to the right of where Mark now stood; the window, a step to
the left. And a grand piano half-sheltered it from the antiquarian's
line of fire!

"Hurry up!