the gloom above him seemed to lighten. He sat upon the
lower step and took off his heavy boots, then crept up the stairs
noiselessly, reaching a landing dimly lighted by a small slit of a
window which looked out upon the night. Pausing here, he was enabled
definitely to establish his position within the castle walls. Below him
was the narrower gorge, opposite him the cliff upon which he had
crouched this afternoon. He was beneath one end of the Hall, and from
all indications, in an ancient secret passageway, the existence of which
from its condition had for years been forgotten. At the landing there
was a heavy wooden door upon his left. This he examined as minutely as
possible by the dim light of the loophole, peering through the keyhole,
from which exuded a faint odor of gasoline. It must be here that Goritz
kept the car. The platform was near the level of the rampart, then.
Renwick did not pause here long for he saw that the stairs turned and
mounted again in the opposite direction.

Renwick felt for his automatic, and leaving his shoes on the landing by
the window, again climbed into the darkness. Another landing--and before
his eyes, now sensitive to the slightest lessening of the gloom, a thin
thread of light crossed the narrow passage, terminating at his right in
an illuminated spot upon the wall. It did not emanate as he had at first
supposed, from a keyhole, but from a crevice between two stones, where
the joints had turned to powder. He peered through eagerly, but his
range of vision was small, covering merely a section of paneled
woodwork, a mullioned window, and a chair or two. He held his breath and
listened, for he fancied he heard the sound of footsteps. Yes, there
they were again, the slowly moving footsteps of a man pacing to and
fro--and then the footsteps halted suddenly and a voice spoke. It was
that of Leo Goritz.

"Are you sure that you saw them?"

"There is no mistake. My eyes are good."

"Did they remain long?"

"For twenty minutes or so, but they saw that the thing was impossible
and went away."

"The situation becomes interesting," said Goritz.

"Rather too risky, I should say," put in the other. "If the Herr
Hauptmann had only taken my advice last week----"

"I never take advice. But you may have been mistaken. I can scarcely
believe that Herr Windt had the skill to trace us here--unless----"

"But it was he. I was peering through the slit in the postern, not
twenty feet away. I co