h a sharp chisel soon cut away sufficient of the frame
to allow the door to be forced open. On this occasion, there being no
wedge in the center, it was not necessary to attack the hinges, and,
once the lock was freed, the door swung back readily into the interior
darkness.

The engineer, remembering his needless alarm at falling head foremost
into Curtis's room, went forward boldly enough now, and paid for his
temerity. He was so anxious to be the first to discover whatever
horror existed there that he made for the center of the apartment
without waiting to turn on the light, and, as a consequence, when he
stumbled over something which he knew was a human body, and was greeted
with a subdued though savage whine, he was even more frightened than
before.

But no one was concerned about him or his feelings when Steingall
touched an electric switch and revealed a bound and gagged man fastened
to a leg of the bed. At first, owing to the extraordinary posture of
the body, it was feared that another tragedy had been enacted. The
victim of an uncanny outrage was lying on his side, and his arms and
legs were roughly but skillfully tied with a stout rope in such wise
that he resembled a fowl trussed for the oven. After securing him in
this fashion, his assailants had fastened the ends of the rope to the
iron frame of the bed, and his only possible movement was an
ignominious half roll, back and forth, in a space of less than eight
inches. This maneuver he had evidently been engaged in as soon as he
heard voices and knocking outside, but he had been gagged with such
brutal efficacy that his sole effort at speech was a species of whinny
through his nose.

The detective's knife speedily liberated him; when he was lifted from
the floor and laid gently on the bed, he remained there, quite
speechless and overcome.

Steingall turned to the agitated chambermaid, whose eyes were round
with terror, and who would certainly have alarmed the hotel with her
screams had she come upon the occupant of the room in the course of her
rounds.

"Bring a glass of hot milk, as quickly as you can," he said, and the
girl sped away to the service telephone.

"Wouldn't brandy be better?" inquired Devar.

"No. Milk is the most soothing liquid in a case like this. The man's
jaws are sore and aching. Probably, too, he is faint from fright and
want of food. If we can get him to sip some milk he will be able to
tell us, perhaps, just what ha