"Morbleu!" he muttered, "is she dead?"

He rent the gauze with a sweep of his left hand, and standing upon the
bottom shelf of the case, craned forward into the room, looking all
about him. A purple shaded lamp burnt above the bed as in the adjoining
apartment which he himself had occupied. There were dainty feminine
trifles littered in the big armchair, and a motor-coat hung upon the
hook of the bathroom door. A small cabin-trunk in one corner of the room
bore the initials: "M. L."

Max dropped back into the incredible library with a stifled gasp.

"Pardieu!" he said. "It is Mrs. Leroux that I have found!"

A moment he stood looking from trap to trap; then turned and surveyed
again the impassable walls, the rows of works, few of which were
European, some of them bound in vellum, some in pigskin, and one row of
huge volumes, ten in number, on the bottom shelf, in crocodile hide.

"It is weird, this!" he muttered, "nightmare!"--turning the light from
row to row. "How is this lamp lighted that swings here?"

He began to search for the switch, and, even before he found it, had
made up his mind that, once discovered, it would not only enable him
more fully to illuminate the library, but would constitute a valuable
clue.

At last he found it, situated at the back of one of the shelves, and set
above a row of four small books, so that it could readily be reached by
inserting the hand.

He flooded the place with light; and perceived at a glance that a length
of white flex crossing the ceiling enabled anyone seated at the table
to ignite the lamp from there also. Then, replacing his torch in his
pocket, and assuring himself that the iron bar lay within easy reach, he
began deliberately to remove all of the books from the shelves covering
that side of the room upon which the switch was situated. His theory
was a sound one; he argued that the natural and proper place for such a
switch in such a room would be immediately inside the door, so that one
entering could ignite the lamp without having to grope in the darkness.
He was encouraged, furthermore, by the fact that at a point some four
feet to the left of this switch there was a gap in the bookcases,
running from floor to ceiling; a gap no more than four inches across.

Having removed every book from its position, save three, which occupied
a shelf on a level with his shoulder and adjoining the gap, he desisted
wearily, for many of the volumes were weighty, and the