over the banisters until he saw his
colleague join them on the floor below; then, reassured, and on guard
again, he leaned back against the corridor wall, his pistol resting on
his thigh, and fixed his cold grey eyes on the attic stairs once
more.

The secret agent who now joined Neeland and Ilse Dumont on the fourth
floor had evidently been constructing a barricade across the hallway
as a precaution in case of a rush from the Germans on the roof.

Chairs and mattresses, piled shoulder high, obstructed the passageway,
blocking the stairs; and the secret agent--a very young man with red
hair and in the garb of a waiter--clambered over it, revolver in one
hand, a pair of handcuffs in the other. He lost his balance on top of
the shaky heap; strove desperately to recover it, scrambled like a cat
in a tub, stumbled, rolled over on a mattress.

And there Neeland pinned him, closing his mouth with one hand and his
throat with the other, while Ilse Dumont tore weapon and handcuffs
from his grasp, snapped the latter over his wrists, snatched the case
from a bedroom pillow lying among the mattresses, and, with Neeland's
aid, swathed the struggling man's head in it.

"Into that clothes-press!" whispered Ilse, pointing along the hallway
where a door swung open.

"Help me lift him!" motioned Neeland.

Together they got him clear of the shaky barricade and, lugging him
between them, deposited him on the floor of the clothes-press and
locked the door.

So silent had they been that, listening, they heard no movement from
the watcher on the floor above, who stood guard at the attic stairs.
And it was evident he had heard nothing to make him suspicious.

The Russian girl, dreadfully pale, leaned against the wall as though
her limbs scarcely supported her. Neeland passed his arm under hers,
nodded to Ilse Dumont, and started cautiously down the carpeted
stairs, his automatic pistol in one hand, and the revolver taken from
the imprisoned secret agent clutched tightly in the other.

Down the stairs they crept, straight toward the frightful tumult still
raging below--down past the wrecked club rooms; past a dead man
sprawling on the landing across the blood-soaked carpet--down into the
depths of the dusky building toward the lighted cafe floor whence came
the uproar of excited men, while, from the street outside, rose the
frantic yelling of the mob mingled with the crash of glass and the
clanging dissonance of iron grilles and sh