CHAPTER IX

Through the Barred Door

If only she could get word to some one outside! If only some one could learn of her plight, she might be saved--might save the world! Such was the thought that kept pounding at Eleanor's brain as she sat stooped in her prison room, her head buried in her hands, while through the closed door came the buzzing and droning of motors.

Then by degrees an idea thrust itself upon her. As she moped alone in her dismal monotony, she had heard every evening the shuffling of some one ascending the steps just beyond the barred apartment door. The sound always came at the same time--at five minutes before six--and she could recognize the peculiar dreary noise as it approached. Might not the passer-by, whoever he was, become her deliverer? At first she thought of calling out to him; but realized that, even if he took heed, this would merely be to warn Dunbar, who would find ways to balk her plan.

No! she must communicate without being heard. But how? As if anticipating this very possibility, Dunbar had denied her all writing materials. She considered, indeed, the ancient device of a message written in her own blood, which she might scrawl on a fly-leaf torn from a book; but she feared that some chance blood-stain would furnish her captor with a fatal clue.

The thought of the books, however, gave her another idea. Leaping up with sudden alacrity, she went to the case Dunbar had mentioned, and eagerly selected a volume.

Passing through the room half an hour later, her oppressor paused with a grim smile to see her bent above "The Greycourt Murder Mystery."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, as he leaned over her shoulder for a glance at the title. "Didn't know you went in for that sort of stuff. Good idea, though. Takes your mind off your troubles. Literature of escape, they call it."

He did not notice the ironic glint in her eyes, nor the faint quivering of her voice as she replied,

"Yes, that's it--literature of escape."

Had his mind not been preoccupied, he would have seen how her hands fluttered, and how tremulously she averted his gaze.

"Oh, by the way, might just as well tell you," he confided. "I've been making fine progress. In another five days, if all goes well, I'll be able to set you free."

"Free?" she gasped, unbelievingly.

"Yes, I'll be done with my job by then--have all the compressed air tanks ready, in just another five days."

She started up as if she had been struck, allowing the book to slip to the floor unnoticed.

"Five days?" she repeated, blankly, realizing how little time remained for her to work in. "Five days!"

"God! but I'm getting fed up, slaving in this damnable heat!" he muttered; and then, passing out of the room, threw out at her, with a burst of sardonic laughter,

"Now, my girl, better get back to your--your literature of escape!"

Stunned, she reached for the book. Yet it was with fresh alertness, with a swift new eagerness, that she began racing through the pages. Only a few minutes later, she came to a passage that made her sit up with a start. Then hastily she reached for the little blue handbag she had carried at the time of her capture by Dunbar; and drew out a pair of nail scissors. Her eyes had a furtive look as she stared toward the doorway where Dunbar had disappeared; but her fingers worked swiftly and nimbly as they clipped away at the printed page.

* * * * *

Several hours later, Emanuel Knapp, a civil service employee, was on his way home to his top-floor apartment. As usual, he puffed and wheezed as he climbed the weary five flights in the old-fashioned "walk-up" building; and, as usual for many weeks past, he sweated in the deadly heat. Arriving at the fourth floor, he paused to regain his breath; and, as he did so, he became conscious of a low rustling, and saw a thin bit of paper being ejected beneath the door of Apartment "4 E."

"Well now, isn't that funny," he thought; and, though not naturally a curious man, reached automatically for the paper.

As he opened it, he saw to his surprise that it was part of the title page of a book, and his eyes fell upon the conspicuous printed word, MURDER.

"What the heck! Am I going crazy with the heat?" he mumbled to himself; and noticing several smaller specks of paper fluttering loose from the larger one, he reached down for them also.

"For heaven's sake, rescue me!" he read on the first of the slips, which was printed in large book type; while another slip bore, in the same type, an even more startling notation, "I'm caught in the toils of the slimiest devil God ever put on earth!"

Now Emanuel Knapp was not a man naturally quick of apprehension. Hence he was not certain that anything was really seriously amiss. "Most likely there's some crazy loon inside--or else it's just a practical joke," he reflected, as he scowled at the door of 4 E.

Having thus solved the mystery, he wiped his streaming red brow, and bleakly started up the final flights of stairs.

But, as he did so, he spied a third printed slip at the base of the steps. And wearily he reached down for it.

"Lord help us, sir, don't hesitate a minute!" he read. "Not one minute, or it will be too late!"

"By gum," he meditated, "wonder if there mightn't be something in it after all. Maybe I ought to notify the police. No harm, anyway, in letting 'em know."

But the thought of retreating down those four long flights of stairs was far from inviting. However, his interest being aroused, he pressed one ear against the door of 4 E. And, from within, he heard a low droning sound.

"By glory," he concluded, starting down the stairs, "maybe it's a counterfeiting gang!"

Fifteen minutes later, two officers of the law had marched in Knapp's company to the door of 4 E. And after prolonged rapping and violent bell-ringing, the door had opened, to reveal a man in a chemist's stained white robe, who greeted them blandly, and professed great surprise at their call.

"Looks like you've got the wrong apartment, Officers," he protested, suavely, when shown the clippings picked up by Knapp. "I've been busy all day with some experiments in the laboratory. There's no one else in the place."

"Well, damn it, the story did look phoney to me!" admitted Officer O'Madden, glaring reproachfully at Knapp. "What the hell! a regular cock-and-bull yarn! If the Chief hadn't ordered us to come--"

* * * * *

But Officer Frye was of a different turn of mind. "Perfectly sure you're the only person here, Mister?" he demanded of Dunbar.

"Hasn't been another soul around for weeks."

"Sure of that?"

"Absolutely!"

"Then what is that blue handbag doing over there on the settee?"

Dunbar could not quite control a startled gasp. His eyes flashed, and his lips twitched oddly. But he did not reply.

"Mind if I look at it?"

Dunbar, imposing himself in the way, started to protest. But the officer had already shoved himself into the room. In an instant he had snatched up the handbag and slipped open the clasp. And from within he had taken a small printed card, and read, "Miss Eleanor Firth."

"Firth? Eleanor Firth?" gasped O'Madden. "By crimps! ain't that the girl what disappeared the other day? Why, her folks set up a hell of a row--I was in the station when they popped in. Foul play, they called it."

A long weighted silence followed. Dunbar glanced furtively toward the door, as if looking for some easy way of escape. His eyes blazed with the fury of the trapped animal.

"Well, maybe it's just what you call a coincidence," drawled Officer Frye. "Anyway, guess we'd better take a look around."

Despite Dunbar's protestations, the officers proceeded to ransack the room--though without results. And while they were peering under tables, behind sofas and into closets, Knapp stood with his nose pressed suspiciously against a locked door.

"Say, Officer, there's a funny smell coming from over here," he reported.

"The whole place smells funny, if you ask me!" mumbled Frye. And then, turning to Dunbar, "Guess you'd better let us peep in there, Brother!"

The chemist stood with his back firmly pressed against the door. "I'll be damned if you will! That's my private laboratory. I'm in the midst of an experiment, which will be ruined if I let any light in!"

"To hell with your experiment! Stand aside, Brother!"

But not until two pairs of strong arms had flung him away did Dunbar forsake the door. And not until two strong pairs of shoulders had pressed themselves against the partition did the lock show signs of yielding. It was just when it began to crack that Dunbar made his dash toward the front entrance--to be thwarted by the lucky chance that Knapp blocked his way, giving Frye time to lay hands upon him, while O'Madden finished the little business of breaking down the door.

As the barrier gave way, an unpleasant odor, a little like ether, penetrated to the men's nostrils.

"Jumping crickets!" cried O'Madden. "What in tarnation is this!"

Stretched full-length on the floor in the electric light, with pale bloodless face and inert, apparently unbreathing form, was a dishevelled young woman, her unbared left arm displaying a long bloody streak.

* * * * *

In the first amazed instant of the discovery, Officer Frye almost lost his grip on Dunbar.

"The saints preserve us! Is she dead?" he gasped.

"Looks like it," concluded O'Madden. "First let's attend to this devil, then we'll investigate."

Out rattled a pair of handcuffs, which clapped themselves about Dunbar's wrists.

Bending down to the girl, Frye felt her forehead. "Why, she's still warm," he discovered. "Couldn't be dead very long."

"You blinking idiots!" raged the captive, struggling in O'Madden's bear-like grip. "What makes you think she's dead? Why, she'll recover soon enough. If you'll give me a chance, I'll bring her back right now. We were just performing a little experiment--"

"Experiment! Like hell!"

It was only then that Frye observed the hypodermic needle on the floor a few feet from the unconscious girl.

"Guess you can tell them all about that down at the station house," he observed, caustically. "Meanwhile we'd better bring the lady down to the doc's office on the first floor. You just keep your grip on that thug, O'Madden!"

Six-foot giant that he was, Frye had gathered the girl into his arms as easily as if she had been a sofa pillow.

"By God, if you don't let me go," threatened Dunbar, his black eyes glittering like a crowd of devils dancing, "I swear you'll rue the day!"

Frye's answer was a hoarse burst of laughter.

But cutting through his laughter with the sharpness of an earthquake, there came a rattling and banging at the laboratory window. And while the two officers and Knapp stood as if transfixed, the window shade flew up and the window burst open, though there was nothing visible to account for the commotion, O'Madden afterwards asserted that a cold breeze blew by him, though the thermometer stood around 100; and Frye, whose courage no one had ever doubted, did not deny that the hair on his head prickled and a chill swept down his spine.

"If only it'd been something I could of seen, no matter what, I'd of stood up against it," he recited, as he told of the event between gulps of whisky. "What the devil! A man can only die once! But this thing that you couldn't see or put hands on--Christ, I'd rather fight a herd of stampeding elephants!"

The fact was, as both officers testified, that the very walls of the room shook, as if rocked by some mighty force. Dunbar's handcuffs, though O'Madden swore that he had clasped them on firmly, fell to the floor as though they had been mere bands of paper. An eerie whirring voice, proceeding as if from nowhere, gave warning, "Harm him not, earthlings, or beware the consequences!" And, at the same time, Dunbar was jerked out of the astonished officer's grip!

Yes, jerked away completely, like a toy torn from a child's hands! From the expression on his face, it was evident that he was as bewildered as anyone as he went gliding toward the window and out--out into the open air, where he disappeared in the fog! While, even as he vanished, the window shade snapped down and the window slammed shut.

"By glory, the place is haunted!" mumbled O'Madden, crossing himself. And as the three men, with the unconscious girl, emerged from the outer door of 4 E, their faces streamed with a sweat that did not come from the heat alone; and they knew that there was no force on earth powerful enough to induce them to set foot across that threshold again.