jolt than usual, the machine curved warily through a gate into a narrow way, the brakes were put on sharply, the clutch was thrown out, and the cab stopped dead. It was halted and its machine was panting down in some garden, the poverty and neglect of which glared under the acetylene lamps. The disordered, weedy gravel of the place and its ragged laurels stood out unnaturally, framed in the thick darkness. The edge of the light just caught the faded brick corner of an old house.
Professor Higginson had barely a second in which to note a flight of four dirty stone steps leading to a door in the shadow, when his captors spoke for the first time.
"Will you go quietly?" said the one crouching before him—he that had tied his ankles.
The Professor assented through his gag with a voice like the distant lowing of a cow. The strong grip that held his wrists pulled his arms behind him, the taxi door was opened, and he was thrust out, still held by the hands. He poised himself upon his bound feet, and whoever it was that had spoken—he had a strong, young voice, and looked broad and powerful in the half-light behind the lamps—
