ed. There was nothing to do but to wait, with whatever patience
he could summon, to discover their plans. He did not doubt that he was
to suffer. He had forfeited all right to their confidence, but if this
was to be the only consequence of his ill-doing he was not greatly
worried. Count Poltavo, as he had boasted before in this identical room,
had been in some tight corners and had faced death in many strange and
terrible guises, but the inevitability of doom was never so impressed
upon his mind as it was at this moment when he lay guarded by a hundred
secret forces in the tomb of the Secret House.

He had one hope, a faint one, that T. B. would discover the method of
his exit from the room in Moor Cottage and would track him here.

Evidently the occupants of the Secret House had the same fear, for even
here, in the quietness of his underground prison, Poltavo could hear
strange whining noises, rumbling, and groaning and grinding, as though
the whole of the house were changing its construction.

He had not long to wait for news. A corner lift came swiftly down and
Fall stepped briskly towards his prisoner.

"T. B. Smith is in the house," he said, "and is making an inspection; he
will be down here in a moment. In these circumstances I shall have to
betray one of the secrets of this house." He caught the other roughly by
the arm and half led, half dragged, him to a corner of the room.
Handcuffed as he was, Poltavo could offer no resistance. Dr. Fall
apparently only touched one portion of the wall, but he must have moved,
either with his foot or with his hand, some particularly powerful
spring, for a section of the stone wall swung backwards revealing a
black gap.

"Get in there," said Fall, and pushed him into the darkness.

A few moments later T. B. Smith, accompanied by three detectives,
inspected the room which Poltavo had left. There was no sign of the man,
no evidence of his having so recently been an occupant of his prison
house. For an interminable time Poltavo stood in the darkness. He found
he was in a small cell-like apartment with apparently no outlet save
that through which he had come.

He was able to breathe without difficulty, for the perfect system of
ventilation throughout the dungeons of the Secret House had been its
architect's greatest triumph.

It seemed hours that he waited there, though in reality it was less than
twenty minutes after his entrance that the door swung open again and he
was c