As he ripped the ceiling away, light entered the cage from a dirty
skylight far above. Just over his head a heavy iron grating covered
the cage, barring him in, but high up he could see the great drum,
from which the cable slowly unwound as the car descended. He was in an
elevator, but this knowledge gave him small comfort. Cage, room, or
elevator--call it what he chose--it was relentlessly descending into
the flooded cellar. He watched the drum with fascinated eyes, as the
wire cable unwound itself. He lay back on the bed, his feet hanging to
the floor, and stared upward. He could not take his eyes from the
revolving drum. It was like a clock, marking the moments he still had
to live.

But suddenly he was galvanized into action. Over his feet something
cold ran, making him jerk them from the floor. It was the water of the
oubliette, and he gazed on it with horror as it rose, inch by inch,
toward him. Slowly, as the car dropped, the water crept up. It reached
the first drawer of the small bureau. It crept up to the side rails of
the bed. It wet the mattress--and still it rose. He stood on the bed
and grasped the iron grating above his head.

"Stop!" whispered a voice above his head, and the creaking cage
stopped.

"Gubb! Detective Gubb!" whispered the voice, and Philo Gubb looked
upward. "Listen, Detective Gubb," said the voice. "One touch of my
hand on the lever, and you will be dropped beneath the waters, never
to appear again, except dead. One only chance remains for your life,
and, blackened with crime though we are, we offer you that chance. If
you will swear to leave the State, never to return, we will spare you.
What say you, Philo Gubb?"

It was an offer no mortal could refuse. Life, after all, is sweet.
Philo Gubb, the relentless Correspondence School detective, opened his
mouth, but as he turned his head upward, he closed it again and licked
his lips twice.

"No, durn ye!" he shouted angrily. "I won't never do no such thing!"

There was a hurried whispering of many voices above him.

"Think well," said the voice again. "We will give you until midnight
to reconsider your rashness. Until midnight, Detective Gubb!"

"You can't scare _me_!" shouted Philo Gubb.

"Until midnight!" repeated the voice, and then there was silence.

Philo Gubb immediately drew his heavy pocket-knife from his pocket and
began cutting out one of the panels of the door that shut him in on
one side. He did not work hurriedly.