| Show the GIRL in the MIRROR by ELIZABETH JORDAN 0 by th company barlo CHAPTER IX continued 13 toa mean baurle was staring at him incredulously you mean you dont intend to let me leave here shaw shrugged deprecating tiers oh surely I 1 but not immediately bis guest turned and addressed the fire 1 I neter listened to such nonsense in my life he gravely assured it shaw nodded it does seem a little melodramatic he conceded 1 I tried to think of better less brusque as it were but the time was 0 o short I 1 really had 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 baurle moved closer to him get up he commanded shaw looked surprised 1 I am very comfortable here get up I 1 the words came out between the young mans clenched teeth shaw again shrugged deprecating shoulders then with another of his sharp toothed grins he rose and faced bis visitor at the desk across the room the big blond secretary rose also and fixed his pale blue eyes on his employer now said baurle tell me what the devil you are driving at and what all this mystery means what an impulsive high strung chap you are I 1 shaw was etall grin nang his wide grin you wont tell me of course I 1 ive told you enough now to satisfy any reasonable person besides you said you had something to say to me he was deliberately goading the younger man and baurle saw it he saw too over shaws shoulder the tense waiting figure of the secretary he advanced another step les he said ive got three things to say to you one Is that you re a contemptible low lived blackmailing hound the second Is that before I 1 get through with you im golsh to choke the truth out of your fat throat and the third Is that see you in h I 1 before I 1 give you any such promise as you ask now fm going He walked over to the couch and picked up his bat and coat the secretary unostentatiously insinuated himself into the center of the room shaw alone remained immovable and unmoved even as baurle turned with the garments in his hands shaw smiled bl 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 hoar baurle s eyes followed the gesture he had already observed the absence of windows now for 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 fernl ture or possibly it was opened by a hidden spring wherever it was it could be found in the meantime his maneuver had given him what he wanted more space in which to fight men with a sudden movement shaw picked up the silver framed photograph and ostentatiously blew the dust off it this done he held it out and looked at it admiringly tou will stay here but you will not be alone he promised with his wide sharp toothed grin this will keep you company bee how the charming lady smiles at the prospect he dropped the picture which fell with a crash on the tiled flooring around the fireplace the glass broke and splintered shaw gasped and gurgled under the strangling hold of powerful fingers on hla throat lamp and table were overturned in the struggle that carried the three men half a dozen times across the room and back baurle fighting two opponents with desperate fury could still see their forms and shaws bulging eyes in the firelight then he himself gasped and choked something wet and sweet was pressed against his face he heard an excited whisper hold ont be careful there not too much of thail A moment more and he had slipped over the edge of the world and was dropping through black space CHAPTER X A bit of bright ribbon when baurle opened his eyes blackness was still around him a blackness without a point of light but as alg mind slowly cleared the picture he saw in his last conscious moment lashed across jils mental vision the dim room the struggling straining figures of shaw and the blond secretary he beard again the hissed caution not too much of that he sat up dizzily there had been too much of that he felt faint and ted his hands grop ug in clr darkness came to contact cwi n I 1 rick floor or was it the was around the fireplace ha did know lie decided to sit quite still for a moment until he could pull him self together his body felt stiff and sore there must have been a dandy fight in that dingy old room he reflected with eat perhaps the other two men were lying somewhere near him in the darkness perhaps they too were knocker out lie hoped they were but no of course not again he remembered the hurried caution not too much of that tie decided to light a match and see where he was and he fumbled in his pockets with the first instinct of panic he had known if those brutes had taken his matchbox I 1 but they haan hadn t he opened it carefully still with a alln gering suggestion of the panic if he had been a hero of romance he rea with a dawning grin that box would have held exactly one match and he would have had to light that one very slowly and carefully then at the last instant the feeble flicker would have gone out leaving it up to him to invent some method of manu light As it was however his tat match box was comfortably filled and his cigarette case which he eagerly shaw gasped and gurgled under tho strangling hold of the powerful on his throat opened and examined by touch held three no four cigarettes that was luck I 1 his spirits rose singing how tor a light 1 he lit a match held it up looked around him and felt himself grow suddenly limp with surprise lie had expected of course to find himself in shaws room instead 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 he lit another and examined his new enal rosment as carefully as 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 especially cold and not evil smelling its walls were brick so was the floor which was covered with clean straw a discovery that made its present occupant suddenly cautious in handling his matches he had no wish to be burned alive in this underground trap the place was apparently used as a sort of there was an old trunk in it and some broken down pieces of furniture the second match burned out affluent though he was in matches it was no part of the young mans plan to bum his entire supply at one sitting as it were for half an hour he crouched in the darkness ponder ins then as an answer to certain persistent questions that came up in his mind he lit a third match he greatly desired to know where lay the outlet to that cellar and in this third illumination he decided that he had found it there must be some sort of a trap door at the top through which he had been dropped or low ered those wide seams in the whitewashed belling must mean the cracks due to a set in door undoubtedly that door had been bolted also even assuming that it was not fastened the belling was fully eight feet above him there was no ladder there were no stairs ills third match burned out in the instant of its last flicker he saw something white lying on the straw beside him lie promptly lit another match and with rising excitement picked up the sheet of paper and read the three line communication scrawled in pencil upon it out tomorrow flashlight candles cigarettes and matches in bor at your left blankets in corner be good the recipient of this interesting document read it twice then having secured the box at his left a discarded collar box judging by its shape and labels he drew forth the flashlight the cigarettes the matches and the candles it contained lighting one of the candles he stock it securely on a projecting ledge of the wall by its wan light aided by the electric flash he took a full though still dazed anven tory of his surroundings the lan shaw had puzzled him again he had handled shaw very roughly tor a time he could still feel and he recalled the sensation with great pleasure the thick slippery neck of the creature and the way it had squirmed when he got his fingers into it yet the evidently bore no malice or a searing thought struck baurle having things his own way he could afford to be generous in other words he was now perfecting his plans while he baurle was 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 surely nothing could happen that night t or could it and what would it be only a fool would doubt shaws power and venom after such an experience as baurle had just had and yet even now the skeptical interrogation point reared itself in the young mans mind one fact alone was clear he must get out of this but how flashlight in hand he made the short tour of the cellar examining and tapping every inch of the wall the masonry and the floor work could be pile ut the furniture and so reach the door in the belling cel ling he could not iho articles consisted of the small bat trunk a legless broken cot and a clock whose internal organs had been removed piled one on the other they would not have borne a child s weight baurle decided that he was directly under shaws room perhaps the creature was there now lie would consent to a parley but shouts and whistles and a rain of small objects thrown up against alie trapdoor produced no response he began to experience the sensa alons of a trapped animal so vivid were these and so overpowering as he measured his helplessness against the girl s possible need of him that he used all his will power in over coming them resolutely he reminded himself that he must keep cool and steady he would leave nothing nn done that could be done he would shout at intervals conr or later bome night watchman would hear him he would reach that trapdoor it the achievement were humanly possible but first last and all tb time he would keep cool when he had exhausted every resource his imagination suggested he sat in the straw smoking and brood ing his mind incessantly seeking some way out of his plight at intervals he shouted pounded and whistled he walked the floor and examined reexamined re it and the cellar walls he looked at hla watch it waa three in the morning he was exhausted and his body still ached very slowly be resigned himself to the inevitable morning would soon come he must sleep till then to be in condition for the day he found shaw s blankets threw himself on the straw and fell into a slumber full of disturbing dreams in the most vivid of these he was a little boy at school and on the desk before him a colled boa constrictor with shaw s wide and sharp toothed grin ordered him to copy on his slate an excellent photograph of doris lie awoke with a start and in the next instant was on his feet he had heard a sound and now he saw a light falling from above he looked up A generous square opening appeared in the belling cel ling and leading down from it was the gratifying vision of a small ladder up the ladder lau ale sprang with the swiftness of light itself subconsciously he realized that it he was to catch the person who had opened that door and dropped that ladder he must be exceedingly brisk about it but quick as he was he was still too slow with a grip on each side of the opening and a strong swing he lifted himself into the room above As he expected it held no occupant what he had not expected and what held him staring now waa that it held not one stick of furniture bare as a bone bleak as a skeleton it had the effect of grinning at him with shaws wide white grin his first conscious reflection was the natural one that it was not shaws room he had been carried to another building this room had a window which of course might have been concealed behind the letter flies yet bare as it was it looked familiar there was the fireplace with its charred logs there yes there were the splinters of the glass that bad pro doris photograph and final convincing evidence there forgotten in a corner was the worn bedroom slipper he haf noticed under the couch the night before with eyes still bewildered still in credulous he stared around the empty room before him dawned yawned an open door showing an uninviting vista of dingy hall he stepped across its threshold and looked down the wind ing passade of the night before but why haan hadn t he seen the boort 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 had been made level with the wall when it was closed there was no ap parent break in the pattern of the wall paper if there had been a chair in the room young mr devon would have sat down at this point ills body wanted to sit down in fact it almost insisted upon doing so but just as he was relaxing in utter bewilderment be received another gentle shock above the old fashioned mantel was n narrow set in mirror and in this clr laurie caught a glimpse of the features of a disheveled young ruffian staring fixedly at him he had time to stiffen perceptibly over this vision before he realized that the disheveled ruffian was himself a coatless collarless self with shirt torn open cuffs torn off hair on end features battered and dirty and bits of straw clinging to what was left of his clothing for a long moment laurie gazed at the figure in the glass and as he gazed ills mingled emotions shook down into connected thought yes there had been a dandy fight in this room last night and he had the satis faction of knowing that his two opponents must have come out of it as disheveled as himself he had had them going beyond doubt he could have handled them both but for their infernal chloroform again he re called with pleasure the feeling of shaws thick slippery neck as it choked and writhed under the grip of his fingers incidentally he bad landed two blows on the secre jaw sending him first into a corner and the next time to the floor it was soon after the second blow that tha episode of the chloroform occurred straightening up he begun the hur aled and elemental toilet which was all the conditions permitted he ra moved the pieces of straw from his clothing smoothed his hair straightened his garments to conceal as much of the damage to them as possible and gratefully put on his coat which lay neatly folded on the floor with his silk hat resting snugly upon it it required some courage to go out into the clear light of n january morning in patent leather pumps and wearing n silk hat he would find some one around the place from whom he could borrow n hat and get tho information he needed about the late tenants of this extraordinary office it was halt past seven he had slept inter than he zel he had slept while dorig was in peril the reminder both appalled and steadied him mth a last look around the tied room he closed its door behind him and went out into the winding hall HP hurried up and down n length poking his head into empty storerooms store rooms and dusty offices lut find ing no sign of life TO |
