evident effort. She had barely, as yet,
recovered from the shock of those awful hours.

"The person who brought me the food," she said, "came at night--never in
the daytime. I never heard anything. The most I ever saw was once--I
happened to be looking towards the door and I saw a pair of hands--nothing
more--setting down a tray. I shrieked and called out. I think that I
almost fainted. When I found courage enough to look, there was nothing
there but the tray upon the floor."

"You never heard, for instance, the rustling of a gown or the sound of a
footstep?" the Professor asked. "You could not even say whether your
jailer were man or woman?"

Lenora shook her head.

"All that I ever heard was the opening of the door. All that I ever saw
was that pair of hands. One night I fancied--but that must have been a
dream!"

"You fancied what?" the Professor persisted.

"That I saw a pair of eyes glaring at me," Lenora replied, "eyes without
any human body. I know that I ran round the room, calling out. When I
dared to look again, there was nothing there."

The Professor sighed as he turned away.

"It is evident, I am afraid," he said, "that Miss Lenora's evidence will
help no one. As an expert in these affairs, Mr. Quest, does it not seem to
you that her imprisonment was just a little purposeless? There seems to
have been no attempt to harm her in any way whatever, that I can see."

"Whoever took the risk of abducting her," Quest pointed out grimly, "did
it for a purpose. That purpose would probably have become developed in
course of time. However we look at it, Mr. Ashleigh, there was only one
man who must have been anxious to get her out of the way, and that man was
Craig."

The Professor's manner betrayed some excitement.

"Then will you tell me this?" he demanded. "The young lady is confident
that she locked Craig up in the coach-house and that the key was on the
outside of the door, a fact which would prevent the lock being picked from
inside, even if such a thing were possible. The window is small, and up
almost in the roof. Will you tell me how Craig escaped from the
coach-house in order to carry out this abduction--all within a few
minutes, mind, of his having been left there? Will you tell me that, Mr.
Sanford Quest?" the Professor concluded, with a note of triumph in his
tone.

"That's one of the troubles we are up against," Quest admitted. "We have
to remember this, though. The brain that planned the