The engine was still panting slightly.
"Yes, Charlie," said Jimmy cheerfully. "Off you go!"
"Good night," said the young, well-Englished and rather tired drawl again.
The clutch caught, the engine throbbed faster, the untidy gravel crunched under the motor as it turned a half circle to find the gate, and in doing so cast a moment of fierce light upon the stained and dirty door of the house.
The gagged victim noted that the door was open: there had been preparation, and the signs of it did not reassure him.
His captor thrust him against that door, into the dark hall within. The other one, the one he had heard called "Jimmy" followed, shut the door, and struck a match.
There was revealed in the flare a passage between perfectly bare walls, dusty, uncarpeted floor boards, still bearing the faint marks of staining at their edges, a flight of stairs with flimsy bannisters, many of them broken—for the rest, nothingness.
"Melba" (if I may call that gentleman by the name his associate had given him) was busy at the Professor's wrists with something more business-like than a handkerchief. He
