on he looked up, and saw her face half a
dozen feet above him, wearing an expression of fiendish malignity which
froze his blood.

She was holding the candle so that she might see his face, and as he
kept himself afloat in the small space available--for he had no room to
strike out, and no foothold on the slimy earthen sides--he began to
understand that she was in grim, deadly earnest, and that the place
where the dead body of Edward Jacobs had been concealed was to be his
own grave.

Then he did not cry out. He saw that he would only be wasting his
breath; that there was no mercy in the hard-light eyes, in the lines of
the wicked, wrinkled mouth.

He made a struggle to climb up one side of the pit in which he found
himself; but the soft earth, slimy with damp, slipped and gave way under
him. He tore out a hole with his fingers, then another, and another
above that. And all the while she watched him without a word, apparently
without a movement.

But just as he came to a point in his ascent from which he might hope to
make a spring for the top, she raised her thick stick and dealt him a
blow on the head which sent him, with a splash and a gurgling cry, back
into the water.

He saw strange lights dancing before his eyes. He heard weird noises
thundering in his ears, and above them all a chuckling laugh, like the
merriment of a demon, as the boards of the displaced flooring were drawn
slowly up by a cord from above until they closed over his head, shutting
him down.

* * * * *

When the police made their descent upon Dudley's chambers, Max, after
giving his name and address, was allowed to go away without hindrance.

He wanted Carrie to go with him, but as she persistently held down her
head and refused to look at him, he came to the conclusion that she had
her own reasons for wishing him to go away without her.

So he went slowly down into the Strand, wondering whether he dared to go
to the wharf to try to warn Dudley, or whether he would be drawing down
danger upon his friend's head by doing so. For although he could not
ascertain that he was himself shadowed, he thought that it might very
possibly be the case.

He had reached the corner of Arundel Street, when he found that Carrie
was beside him. She was panting, out of breath.

"Hello!" said he.

"I've been such a round!" said she. "Just to see whether they were
following me. But they weren't. I guessed you'd come this wa