to pass through two
more doors before they came to the spiral staircase which led down into
the gloomy depths beneath the Secret House.

To Ela's surprise they were illuminated and he feared that against his
orders the dynamo had been restarted, but the man reassured him.

"They are from the storage batteries," he said. "There is sufficient to
afford light all over the house, but not enough to give power."

The steps seemed never ending. Ela counted eighty-seven before at last
they came to a landing from which one door opened. The detective noticed
that the man employed the same method of entering here as he himself had
done. A bodkin slipped into an almost invisible hole produced the
mechanical unsealing of this doorway.

Ela stepped through the open door. Two lights burned dimly; he saw the
strapped figure in the chair and his heart sank. He went forward at a
run and Farrington was the first to hear him.

The big man turned, a revolver in his hand. There was a quick deafening
report, and another, and a third. Ela stood up unmoved, unharmed, but
Farrington, rocking as he staggered to the table, slid to the ground
with a bullet through his heart.

"Take that man," said Ela, and in an instant Fall was handcuffed and
secure.

Then Ela heard a silent sneeze and through the smoke from the revolver
shots the voice of T. B. Smith, saying: "A pity it takes such
ill-smelling powder to send our clever friend on his long journey."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret House, by Edgar Wallace

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