"YOU ARE OUR PRISONER!"
For hours Lester Armstrong lay like one stunned, turning over and over
in his mind the awful revelation he had heard. That a human being,
especially his cousin, Clinton Kendale, should have plotted so horribly
against him seemed almost past believing. Then he remembered how
treacherous he had been in his early days, and he wondered that he had
been so mad as to have trusted him.
"Heaven save my darling from him!" he cried out in an agony too great
for words. To realize that she was in the mercy of such a man was a
sorrow so great that all else on earth paled before it. Then a mighty
resolve came to him--to foil the villainous plot, weak though he was; he
must make his escape and fly to his darling's aid.
He knew that Clinton Kendale would follow out his line of action,
keeping him there as long as it was necessary--that is, until he learned
all the secrets that he was so anxious to ascertain--then he would put
him out of the way with as little compunction as he would a dog. He
might expect little mercy at Kendale's hands, when two fortunes and a
beautiful young girl hung in the balance.
For hours he lay there, turning the matter over in his mind. He knew he
was terribly weak from the awful fall which he had received, and which
had hurt his head the second time in almost the same place; but escape
he must from the clutches of the conspirators, even though he were
dying.
Suddenly the key turned in the lock, the door swung open and Kendale
entered, bearing a lighted candle in his hand.
"Ah, you have come to, have you?" he remarked, seeing the other's eyes
turn toward him; and before Lester Armstrong could answer he went on
quickly: "You are the only one who knows the combination which opens the
safe of the late Marsh & Co., and as I intend to open it to-morrow
morning at the usual hour in place of your punctual self, it will be
most necessary for you to give me the required information."
For one moment Lester Armstrong gazed steadily into the face of the
fiend incarnate before him--a look before which the other quailed
despite his apparent bravado.
"I am in your power and at your mercy," he said, "but though you torture
me on the rack I shall never tell you what you want to know. That safe
contains valuable papers which belong to others; they are secure in my
keeping. You can kill me, but the secret of the safe combination will
die with me."
Kendale laughed a little short, hard laugh.
"You are mad to thus defy me," he cried, harshly, "when you stop to
consider that I can open it in any event. I can simply say the
combination has slipped from my mind. Who is there to question Mr.
Lester Armstrong, the head of the firm? No one--no one. It will be
broken open quite as soon as workmen can be found to accomplish it."
The lines about the sufferer's mouth tightened; he clutched his hands
hard. He knew the dare devil Kendale would stop at nothing--nothing.
"I will give you until daylight to decide. I promise you that it will go
hard with you if you are not complaisant."
With that he turned on his heel and quitted the room.
During all the long hours of that never-to-be-forgotten night Lester
Armstrong lay there on his pallet of straw praying for strength to foil
the villain--for Heaven to direct him what to do.
For the Marsh millions he cared nothing; but his heart was wrung with
anguish when he trusted himself to think of Faynie.
He knew that Kendale had kept the appointment made by himself, but for
some reason the elopement could not have taken place. A thousand causes
might have prevented its successful carrying out, though Kendale was
sure of a satisfactory finish, he imagined.
Daylight broke at last; he could see it dimly through the dust-begrimed,
boarded-up windows; but it was not until the sun had well risen that his
cousin put in an appearance again. Lester was suffering intense pain
from the terrible bruise on his head at the base of the brain, but he
set his teeth hard together, determining that his mortal foe should not
know it.
"Ah!" exclaimed Kendale, sneeringly. "Wide awake, I see!--probably the
fixed habit of years. You have, no doubt, come to a more sensible frame
of mind than I left you in last night, I trust, regarding the
information I want concerning the combination of the big safe in the
private office of Marsh & Co."
"I will never reveal it to you," cried Lester. "Never!"
For an instant a black, malignant scowl swept over Kendale's face, but
after a moment's deep thought he turned on his heel again, laughing
immoderately as he stepped to the door and held a low conversation with
the two men who were still in the outer apartment, and in a trice they
had joined Kendale, one of them still wearing the black mask which he
had used the night before.
"We will proceed to relieve him of his private papers, keys, wallet, and
so forth," said Kendale; and, as if in compliance with some previously
arranged plan, the three set upon Lester, and in his almost helpless
condition it was not difficult to overpower him and take from him his
possessions, which Kendale quickly took charge of.
In the encounter, owing to his exhausted condition, Lester lost
consciousness; and thus they left him, making him their prisoner by
turning the key in the lock again when they reached the outer room.
"And now," said Halloran, removing the square of black linen from his
face, "what's next on the programme?"
"Our friend, the cabby, will take me back to town with as much speed as
possible. You, my dear fellow, will remain here on guard, making
yourself as comfortable as is absolutely possible under the dismal
circumstances of keeping guard and circumventing any attempt of our
prisoner to escape. You know we have great need of him yet, in forcing
him to disclose much that is advantageous to us. We can starve it out of
him, if threats fail. As long as you have a good warm fire, plenty of
provisions and plenty to read here you ought not to complain. You are
having the easiest part of the bargain, Halloran, while I am doing all
of the hazardous work."
"What if I should be suspected in the _rôle_ I am about to play for the
Marsh millions? Why, it would mean State's prison instead of the fortune
we have planned for so desperately."
"You will carry it through all right," declared Halloran, confidently.
"My nerve has never failed me so far, and I'm depending on that," said
Kendale, mechanically.
Two hours later Kendale was breakfasting in a fashionable downtown
restaurant, endeavoring to fortify himself with courage for the trying
ordeal which he was about to face.
He had given Halloran his promise to abstain from touching even a drop
of liquor, fully realizing it to be his mortal foe; but with Kendale a
promise amounted to scarcely a flip of his white fingers when it ran
contrary to his own desires.
He told himself that he must have a "bracer" to steady his nerves. It
was not until a second and a third had been drunk that the proper amount
of courage came to him to undertake the dastardly scheme. Half an hour
later he walked boldly into the big dry goods emporium. He had no idea
where the private office was, but his quick wits served him in this
dilemma. Laying his hands on an errand boy who was just passing out,
whose cap bore the name of Marsh & Co., he said, carelessly:
"Here, lad, take my coat up to the private office; I will follow you. Go
slowly, though, through the crowd of shoppers."
With a respectful bow the boy took the coat from him.
It so happened that one of the rules of the house was that the employees
must not use the elevators, and by the time Kendale had climbed the
fourth flight of stairs he was thoroughly exhausted, the perspiration
fairly streaming down his face.
"Don't you know enough to go by way of the elevator, you young idiot?"
he roared, almost gasping for breath.
"You forget it's against the rules for us to do so, Mr. Armstrong,"
returned the lad.
"Rules be hanged!" cried his companion. "How many more floors up is it?"
The lad looked up into his face in the greatest amazement. Such a
question on the lips of the head of the firm rather astounded him; but
then, perhaps it had not occurred to the gentleman just how many flights
of steps the boys were obliged to climb.
"We are only on the fourth floor, sir," he responded, "and it's up the
other four flights, you know."
"Get into the elevator," commanded Kendale; and the boy turned, and
walked over to it, closely followed by his companion, mentally wondering
what in the world had come over courteous, kindly Mr. Lester Armstrong.