He looked at his watch. Quarter past eleven. The room was beginning to whirl, so it seemed. He was losing his balance. In another minute, he would topple from his place of temporary security, and all would be over.
A sharp click came from across the room. He looked toward the oddly shaped nook in the corner. His eyes stared in sudden fascination. Was it fancy? No, it was reality! The corner section of the room, with its narrow opening, was slowly descending. Following it, from the ceiling, was emerging a sheet of solid wall.
For the fraction of a second, Bruce Duncan hesitated. In that infinitesimal space of time, a rush of conflicting thoughts filled his brain. Another trap! No trap could be worse than this. A terrible death! All death was terrible. A chance for life! It was a hope at least.
He plunged from the chair, holding his breath as he fell to the floor. As in a nightmare, in which muscles fail in their task, he fought his way across the room. The descending compartment was more than halfway down, yet he crawled through the breach, then slumped in a heap, completely inside the downward-moving alcove.
His smarting eyes caught one last glimpse of the gas-filled room. Then the opening was closed. He was in total darkness — a terrible darkness that seemed to smother him for an instant.
He opened his mouth and gasped; he breathed deeply. Through his nostrils came the reviving tonic of sweet air that brought relief to his bursting lungs.
CHAPTER XIV. A NEW MENACE
It was a long trip down. The slow, regular movement of the floor beneath him became a relief to Bruce Duncan. He realized that he was in a small elevator between walls of solid masonry. Perhaps he was going to a new ordeal. But future fear could not overcome the present hope that he had gained in escaping from the poisoned atmosphere above.
The darkness continued for a while. Then a crack of light appeared by the floor. It seemed to rise slowly upward as though it were a curtain of illumination. Bruce realized that he had reached the bottom of the elevator shaft.
The light came from a large flashlight that was pointed in his direction. As the brilliance moved up and down under the control of the man who held it, Duncan fancied that he could make out the form of the person behind it.
Some inquisitor, he supposed. Isaac Coffran or his henchman, Pedro, waiting to seize him. He felt helpless; the gas that he had inhaled had left him weak.
The little elevator stopped. Looking upward, Duncan realized that he had reached a low-vaulted room in the cellar of the building. Then a hand gripped him. He was dragged forth to the floor.
The man was bending over him; the flashlight moved upward. From its new position, it revealed the other person. A gasp of relief escaped Bruce Duncan's lips as he recognized the dark anxious face above him.
"Abdul!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, sahib," affirmed the Hindu, in his quiet voice.
"How did you come here?" questioned Bruce, as he sat upon the floor. "How did you find me?"
"I shall tell you later, burra sahib," replied Abdul. "Let us first leave this place of danger."
Duncan tried to rise to his feet. He sank back, momentarily exhausted. His eyes followed the glare of the Hindu's flashlight as it swept about them.
They were in a narrow, low-roofed passage, which terminated in the elevator at one end, and in an arched opening at the other. The Hindu's light was focused on the exit.
"Through there I came," said Abdul. "There we shall go. It is safe there, sahib."
He extended one arm. Bruce Duncan steadied himself and rose with the Hindu's aid. Together they started slowly toward the opening that led to safety.
Just as they reached the low arch, Duncan faltered. As he paused, Abdul stood still beside him. The wait was only a brief second, but before Duncan had advanced another step, some huge device dropped into the glare of the light. There was a swish of cold air, followed by a sharp clang. Two feet in front of the men appeared a solid wall.
Duncan reached out and pressed his hand against hard metal.
"A curtain of steel!" he exclaimed. "A solid sheet of metal! It would have struck us, Abdul, if we had not stopped."
"It has closed our way to safety," replied the Hindu, in his even voice. "We are trapped, burra sahib."
Duncan's rescuer turned the flashlight in all directions. Only the elevator remained as a means of exit. The walls of the room were solid and close together; the steel curtain filled the archway completely. Not even a crack was visible.
There was a click. The elevator began to move slowly upward, a solid wall following from below. It was an ingenious device — part of the room on the second floor of this chamber in the cellar. Going, it left no trace of its existence.
Abdul held the light toward the rising lift.
"Shall we go there, sahib?" he asked.
"No!" exclaimed Duncan. "It leads to death, Abdul. I escaped from a room filled with gas."
"There is no safety here," said the Hindu simply.
"I know that," admitted Duncan. "But it is better than that den I left."
The elevator was gone. A blank, solid wall had taken its place.
Duncan sat on the floor.
"We can do nothing, Abdul," he said. "We must wait. That is all."
With the patience characteristic of his race, the Hindu squatted on the floor beside his master. He turned out the light, and they listened in darkness.
Finally, Bruce Duncan spoke softly.
"Abdul," he said, "why did you come here? How did you manage to rescue me?"
"Burra sahib," said the Hindu, "I suspected evil from the old man last night."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"It is not right that I should interfere with what burra sahib may choose to do. But after you have gone away tonight, some voice seems to tell me that Duncan sahib will be in danger. I have the name and address of this old man, sahib. I come here. I see the house dark. I enter. I find this place."
"But the elevator, Abdul. How did you operate that?"
In answer the Hindu turned on the light. He pointed it to the blank wall, then above. On the ceiling, Duncan saw a small button. He doubted that he would have seen it had it not been indicated for him.
"I could reach to there," explained Abdul. "I know that button means something. My eyes are good, sahib. When I see that, I know it has some use. So I press. Down comes the little room — with you, burra sahib."
The Hindu turned off the light.
"Well, Abdul," said Duncan, in the darkness, "you have saved my life. Above here is a room — a room in which I sat, not suspecting that Isaac Coffran was my enemy. The room gradually filled with a poisonous vapor. I pressed a button up there, but it served no purpose, for the elevator was up.
"I can understand the use for the elevator. The old man would have placed my body in it. From here, in the basement, he would have brought down the elevator. An easy, simple way to remove a murdered person."
He rose and groped toward the wall ahead.
"Turn on the light, Abdul," he said.
The Hindu complied. At that instant a cry came from Bruce Duncan. The floor caved beneath him. He dropped downward, but his course was halted by the alert Hindu. The man had dropped the light, and his hands had caught Duncan underneath the arms, just as he was disappearing into the depths below.
As soon as Abdul had drawn his master to safety the opening in the floor swung upward. It was a hinged device by the wall below the elevator. Its springs made it close so tightly that even under the inspection of the flashlight the cracks seemed hardly noticeable.
"Another danger!" exclaimed Duncan. "My uncle was right. I read his letters, Abdul, in the room upstairs. He said that Isaac Coffran was a fiend!
"I understand it all, now. He murders a man by gas, in the upstairs room. The body is brought down the lift. It is drawn to the floor, the trap is released and down goes the victim!