th his hands, he looked
through the narrow chink where the two panels met. And this was
what he saw.

Barbara Mackwayte was still in the chair; but they had unfastened
her arms though her feet were still bound. She had half-risen
from her seat. Her body was thrust forward in a strained,
unnatural attitude; her eyes were wide open and staring; and
there was a little foam on her lips. There was something
hideously deformed, horribly unlife-like about her. Though her
eyes were open, her look was the look of the blind; and, like the
blind, she held her head a little on one side as though eager not
to miss the slightest sound.

Bellward stood beside her, his face turned in profile to Desmond.
His eyes were dilated and the sweat stood out in great beads on
his forehead and trickled in broad lanes of moisture down his
heavy cheeks. He was half-facing the girl and every time he bent
towards her, she tugged and strained at her bonds as though to
follow him.

"You say he has been here. Where is he? Where is he? You shall
tell me where he is."

Bellward was speaking in a strange, vibrating voice. Every
question appeared to be a tremendous nervous effort. Desmond, who
was keenly sensitive to matters psychic, could almost feel the
magnetic power radiating from the man. In the weird red light of
the room, he could see the veins standing out like whipcords on
the back of Bellward's hands.

"Tell me where he is? I command you!"

The girl wailed out again in agony and writhed in her bonds. Her
voice rose to a high, gurgling scream.

"There!" she cried, pointing with eyes staring, lips parted,
straight at the curtains behind which Desmond stood.

CHAPTER XXVIII. AN OFFER FROM STRANGWISE

Desmond sprang for the window; but it was too late. Strangwise
who had not missed a syllable of the interrogatory was at the
curtains in a flash. As he plucked the hangings back, Desmond
made a rush for him; but Strangwise, wary as ever, kept his head
and, drawing back, jabbed his great automatic almost in the
other's face.

And then Desmond knew the game was up.

Barbara had collapsed in her chair. Her face was of an ivory
pallor and she seemed to have fallen back into the characteristic
hypnotic trance. As for Bellward, he had dropped on to a sofa, a
loose mass, exhausted but missing nothing of what was going
forward, though, for the moment, he seemed too spent to take any
active part in the proceedings. In the meantime Strangwise