y saw what he was doing.

Bang! went the keen blade upon the cable again where it crossed the wheel.

The weight of the car caused the wire rope to part where he cut it, and the
elevator's ascent was checked.

It began to fall with the detectives in it.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CLEW IN THE BASIN.

A cry of alarm escaped Old King Brady when he saw the Frenchman.

"Harry," he gasped, "he is trying to kill us."

"There goes the cable!" muttered the boy, and a cold chill darted through
him as he heard the ominous snap of the parting strands.

"The safety-clutch may save us, Harry."

"No! It don't work," groaned the boy as the car shot down.

A sickening sensation passed through the pair as the falling car went
plunging down at lightning speed.

They expected to get dashed to death at the bottom as they went flying down
past the different floors, and heard a fiendish chuckle from the Frenchman
above their heads.

Like rats in a trap, the two detectives were held so they could do nothing
to aid themselves.

All they could do was to wait for the final crash, and visions of the
wrecked car and their bodies crushed to a pulp flashed across their minds.

The desperation of their situation was appalling.

The speed of their fall took their breath away and both instinctively
grasped the sides of the car and clung to it tenaciously.

Down three stories they plunged.

Then there suddenly sounded a sharp "click."

The car paused, slid a few feet, then came to a sudden stop.

At the last moment the clutches flew out and tightened on the pilot rods,
holding the falling car in midair.

The sudden stopping hurled the detectives to the floor, but they quickly
scrambled to their feet, overjoyed at their salvation.

For an instant neither could speak.

To be so suddenly snatched from the very jaws of death was such a strain
upon their nerves that they could hardly stand it.

Old King Brady was the first to recover, and glancing upward he saw that
their enemy had disappeared from the beam overhead.

"By thunder!" he exclaimed. "La Croix is baffled!"

"I never expected such good luck," replied Harry, delightedly.

"The car is holding, all right."

"Yes, but how are we to get out of it?"

They were caught midway between the second and third floors.

But the parting of the cable had been detected by the engineer and the
conductor of an ascending car in the next shaft as the falling elevator
flew down past hi