Show the GIF IRL juav L in inthe aa A th A A MIRROR by I 1 ELIZABETH JORDAN JORDAIN 0 by tin the conturo Comp CoB ipar amr A CHAPTER IX continued 13 you toa mean lauffe was staring at t him blin incredulously you mean you dont intend to let me leave here shaw shrugged deprecating ders oh burdyl but not immediately nis ills guest turned and addressed the fire 1 I never listened to such nonsense in ray my life he gravely assured it shaw nodded it does sem a little melodramatic he conceded 1 I tried tiled to think of orom co methin ething better something less brusque as it were hut but the time was to 0 o short I 1 really bad no choice what do you mean by that laurie had again turned to face him exactly what I 1 say think it over then let me have your decision laurie moved closer to him get ur up he commanded staw looked surprised 1 I ani am very comfortable here get up the words came out between the young binns clenched teeth shaw acain shrugged deprecating shoulders then another of ills his abara toothed grins lie ile roe and faced lis his visitor eltor vf at the desk across the room the big blond secretary rose also and fixed his pate pale blue eyes on his bis ern now said laurie tell me what the deyl lyou fire driving at and what all 11 II this mystery means what an impulsive high strung chap you aret arel shaw was still brill grinning his wide grin you yon wont tell me of course I 1 wont I 1 ive told you enough now to satisfy any reasonable person resides besides you sald said you had something to say to me he was deliberately goading the younger man and laurie saw it lie ile saw aw too over shaws shoulder the lie tense tease waiting figure of tile the secretary se ne ile advanced another step yes bo be said ive got three things thing 9 to say to you one la Is that youre a contemptible low livet lived black blackmailing malling hound the second Is that before I 1 get through with you im going to choke the truth out of your fat thront throat arid and the third Is that ill see you in ai h 1 I before I 1 give you any ny such promise as you ask now im going ile he walked over to the couch and picked up ills his list hat and coat the secretary unostentatiously insinuated himself into the hie center of the room shaw alone remained immovable and unmoved even as laurie turned with the garments la in ills his hands bands shaw smiled ills his wide smile and encircled the room with a sweeping gesture of one arm go then by all means my young friend he cried jovially but how lauries La urles eyes followed the gesture ile he had already observed the absence of windows now for tile the first time with a sudden intake of breath he discovered a second lack seemingly there was no exit from the room of course there was a door somewhere but it was cleverly concealed perhaps behind some revolving piece of furniture or possibly it was opened by a hidden spring wherever it was it could be found in the lie meantime lira maneuver had given him what lie he wanted more space in which to fight two men with a sudden movement shaw picked up the silvor silver framed photograph and ostentatiously blew tile the dust alit off it this done lie he held it out and looker looked at it admiringly you will stay here but you will not be alone he promised with ills wide sharp toothed grin this will keep you company yee see how the charming lady smiles at the prospect ile he dropped the picture which fell with a crash on the tiled flooring around the fireplace the glass broke and nd splintered shaw gasped and gurgled under the strangling hold of powerful fingers on ills throat lamp find table were overturned in the Pt ruggle that carried the three men inen half a dozen times across the room und back laurie Ia urle fighting two opponents with de lAp crate fury could still tee their forms and shaws bulging eyes lo in the tha then lie he himself gasped and choked something wet and sweet was pressed against his fits face ue lie lapard an excited whisper hold out be careful there not too tio much of that ill A moment more knore and he had slipped over the edge of the world and was dropping through black space CHAPTER X A bit of bright ribbon when laurie opened his eyes blackness was still around him a blackness without a point of light but as ills his cleared the picture he saw aw in I 1 his is last conscious moment hashed flashed across his mental vision tha allm room the struggling straining figures fliCi ires of shaw and the blond secretary ile HP heard again the hissed caution not too much of 0 that ill I 1 ile be sat bat uv up ciz dizzily there had been too much of that he felt faint and mildly nauseated his hands grop kag in the darkness came in contact 10 a brick floor or was it tue the around the fireplace ile he did not know lie he decided to sit bit quite still for a moment until he ha could pull himself together needier ills hia body felt stilt stiff and sore eore there must haie base been a dondy dandy fight in that dingy old room he reflected with satisfaction is the other two men were lying somewhere near him in tile the darkness Per perhaps lisps they too were knocked out ile iia hoped they were but no of course not again he be remembered the hurried caution not too much of that thal ile he decided to light a match and see ree where lie was ind and he fumbled in hj pockets with the first instinct of panic he had bad known it if those brutes had taken his big matchbox but they ile he opened it carefully still with a lingering suggestion of the panic it if lie he had been ek a hero of ro romance mauce lie he reasoned with a dawning grin that hot bot would have held exactly one match and he would have had to light that one very slowly and carefully then at tile the last instant the feeble flicker would have gone out leaving it up to him to invent some method of manufacturing fac turing light As it t was however ills fits fat matchbox was comfortably filled a and nd its his cigarette case which ho he eagerly til I 1 R of i 11 11 1 0 shaw gasped and burgled under the strangling hold of the powerful fingers on his throat opened and examined by touch held three no four cigarettes that was luckl his spirits rose singing now for a light I 1 ile he lit a match held field it up looked around him and felt himself grow suddenly limp with su surprise oprise ue ile had expected of course to find himself in shaws room instead lie he was in a cellar which resembled that room only in the interesting detail that it appeared to have no exit with this discovery his match went out ile he lit another and examined his new environment as carefully as lie he could in the brief interval of illumination it afforded the cellar was a perfectly good one as cellars go it was a small square hollow cube in the earth not damp not dot especially auld and not evil smelling its walls were brick so was the floor which was covered with clean straw a discovery that made its iti present occupant suddenly cautious in handling his matches ile he had no wish to be burned alive in this underground trap the place was apparently used as a sort of storeroom there was wag an old trunk in it and some broken down pieces of furniture the second match burned out affluent though he was in matches matchen it was no part of the young maris mans plan to burn his 1113 entire supply at one cue sitting bitting as it were vor for halt half an hour lie he crouched cro ached in the darkness pondering then as nn an answer to certain cei euln persistent questions that carne came up to in his mind lie lit a third match lie greatly desired to know where lily lay the tha outlet to that cellar and in this third illumination he decided that lie he had found it there lust be some sort of 0 a trapdoor trap door at tle tie top through which lit he had been dropped or low eced those wide seams scams in the whitewashed belling must mean the cracks dus due to a setin set in iu door undoubtedly that door had been batted also even asE that it was riot not fastened the cell belling ilig was fully eight feet above him there was no ladder there were no stairs ills I third match burned out in the instant of its last flicker he be saw something white on the straw beside lim him lie he promptly lit another match and with rising excitement picked up the sheet of paper and read the three line communication la in pencil upon it out tomorrow flashlight candles cigarettes and lo in box left blankets in corner be good the recipient of this document read it twice then having secured the box tit at his left a discarded cellar box judging by its shape and labels he drew forth the flashlight the cigarettes the matches find and the me candles it contained Light lighting log one of the candles he stuck it securely on oil a projecting ledge of the wall by iti IN wan light aided by the electric flash he took a full though still dazed inventory of his fits surroundings tiie the ophidian shaw had puzzled him a ala lie he had handled shaw very roughly for a tillei ile he could still feel and he be recalled the sensation ens atlon with prent great pleasure the thick slippery neck of 0 the creature and the way it had squirmed when he got his fingers into it yet the serpent evidently bore no malice or a searing gearing thought struck baurle having things his bis own way he could afford to be generous in other words he be was now perfecting his plans while he laurie wo out of the way the promise of release tomorrow could mean of course only one thin that thoe plans whatever they were would be carried out by then and yet and yet the boy put his head between his hands and groaned what was happening to doris sur surely ly 6 nothing could happen that nig night lit or ol could it II and what would it be only a fool would doubt shaws power and venom after such an experience as laurie had just had and yet even now the skeptical interrogation point reared itself in the young mans inland one fact alone was clear he must get out of this hut but how fla flashlight in land hand he made the short tour of the cellar examining and tapping every inch of the wall the he masonry and the floor work could be pile up the furniture and so reach the door in tile belling cel ling lie he could not nol the articles consisted of the small battered trunk a legless broken sprigged cot und and a clock whose internal organs oman s had been removed piled one on the other they would not have home borne a childs wel weight gilt laurie decided that he was directly under shaws room perhaps the creature was there now perhaps Perli aps lie he would consent to a parley nut but shouts and whistles and a rain of small objects thrown up against the trapdoor door produced no response ile he began to experience the sensations of a trapped animal so were these and so overpowering RS s lie he measured his felpi helplessness estness against the girls possible need of him that lie he used all ills his will power in overcoming them resolutely lie reminded himself that he must keep cool and steady ile he would krould leave leav nothing undone ondone that could be ba done he would bahout at intervals perhaps sooner or later some borne night watchman would hear bear him ne would reach that trapdoor it if the achievement were humanly possible but first last and all the time he would keep cool when men ho he had exhausted every rc source his imagination suggested he sat in the straw smoking nod and brooding hla fits mind incessantly some way out of hla his plight at intervals intel volt he shouted pounded and whistled he ha walked the floor and reexamined examined re it and tile tho cellar walls walla ile he looked at ills watch it was wa thres three in the mo doming ining he was e mb austed and lit ca body stul ached very slowly he be resigned himself to the inevitable morning would soon come he must sleep till then to be in condition for the day adly ile he found shaws blankets threw himself on the straw and alid tell fell into a slumber full of disturbing Esturb ilir dreams in the most vivid of these lie was a little boy at school and on the desk before him a colled coiled bou boa constrictor with shaws wide and sharp toothed grin ordered him to copy on his slate elate an excellent photograph of doris lie ho awoke with a start and in the next instant was on his feet ile he had heard a sound bound and now he saw a light fight falling from above he looked up ill A A generous square opening appeared in the ceiling cel ling and leading down from it was the gratifying vision of a small ladder up the ladder lau he sprang with the swiftness of light itself subconsciously he realized that if lie was to catch the person who had opened that door and dropped that ladder he must be exceedingly abrl brisk sk about it but quick as he was lie he was still too slow blow with a grip on each ride fide of the opening and P a strong swing he be lifted himself into the room neove As he expected it held no occupant what be had not expected and what held him staring now wan wah that it held not one stick of furniture bare as a bone bleak as a skeleton it had the tha effect of grinning at him with shaws wide white grin ills his first conscious reflection was the natural one that it was not shaws room he had bad been carried to another building this room had a window which mitch of course might have been concealed behind the letter files yet hare bare as it was it looked familiar there was the fireplace with its ita charred logs there yes there were the splinters of the glass that tied protected doris photograph and final convincing el evidence dence there forgotten in a omer was the worn bedroom slipper he had noticed under the couch the night before with eyes still bewildered still incredulous he stared around the empty room before him yawned dawned an open door showing an uninviting vista of dingy hall ile he stepped across its threshold and looked down the winding passage of the night before but why lie beebi been the door ile he moved back into the empty room A glance explained the little mystery the room had been freshly papered door and all the surface of the door doo had been made level with the wall when it was closed th there ere was no apparent break in the pattern of the wall paper if there had been a chair in the room young sir mr devon would have sat down at this point ills his body wanted to sit down in fact it almost insisted upon doing so BO but just as lie he was relaxing in utter bewilderment he receded another gentle shock above the old fashioned mantel was wan at a narrow bet lu mirror and in tills this mirror laurie caught a glimpse of the fei features tures of a disheveled young ruffian staring fixedly at him he had time to stiffen perceptibly over this vision before lie he realized that the disheveled ruffian was himself a coatless collarless self with shirt torn open dins cuffs torn off hair on end features battered and dirty and bits of straw clinging to what was left of ills his clothing for a long moment laurie gazed at the figure in the glass and as aa he be gazed ills his mingled emotions shook down into connected thought tes there had been a dandy leht fight in this room last night and he had the satisfaction of knowing that his two opponents must have conie come out of it as disheveled as film himself self ile he had had them going beyond doubt he be could have handled them both but for their infernal chloroform again he recalled with pleasure the feeling of shaws thick slippery neck as it choked and writhed under the grip of ills fingers in incidentally he had bad landed two blows on the secre jaw sending him first into a corner anil and the next time to the floor it was soon after tile the second blow that the episode of the chloroform occurred straightening up lie he began the hurried and elemental tollet toilet was all the conditions permitted ile he removed the pieces of straw from hla his clothing smoothed ills his hair straightened ills his garments to conceal as |