"Ugh! And to think I worked for that man."
But Jaro wasn't listening. He had gone behind the desk. "This is how
they got him," he said, excitement in his voice. It was, Joan sensed,
the excitement of the man hunter when he grows hot on the trail of
his quarry. There was a cold and ruthless edge to his voice which
she had not heard before, and for the first time she found herself a
little afraid of this strange man about whom she really knew so little.
Hesitantly she edged after him.
Behind the desk, she saw a panel gaping ajar in the stone wall. It was
the same kind of panel which gave admittance to the secret passages on
the lower levels. Jaro was nowhere in sight.
"In here," he called, and Joan thought of the baying of wolves running
strong on a hot scent. She bit her lip, slipped into the blackness
after him.
"Jaro, where are you?"
"This must be how they got him," he said from the darkness beside her.
"When that gunman--the little one who was abducted along with the Red
Witch, you remember--when he escaped he must have stumbled on these
passages, I suppose that was the important information he had for
Albert Peet."
"They couldn't have gone very far," suggested Joan.
"No," said Jaro. "Not very far, I hope." He closed the panel. At once
the darkness gathered about them, pressed in on them from every side.
It was so dark that the girl could bring her hand right up to her face
without being able to distinguish a thing.
* * * * *
A ray of light jumped from the panel as Jaro extracted the plug,
applied his eye to the aperture. He could see the back of the dead
Mercurian leader crumpled across the desk and beyond him the open door
into the vaulted antichamber.
As he looked, a Mercurian, the priest who had been on guard at the
entrance, appeared in the doorway. Other Mercurians were staring over
the priest's shoulder. Consternation was written large across their
usually impassive features.
"Sehr Karfial Hodes!" the priest cried, and then uttered a string of
Mercurian words quite unintelligible to the listening Jaro.
Suddenly, it seemed to dawn on the priest that there had been foul
play. He ran across the floor, turned up his dead leader's face. The
benign, peaceful, half smile on the old Mercurian's lips seemed to
belie his tragic murder. Jaro put back the plug.
"We're in for it," he said grimly. "The Mercurians must believe that we
murdered Karfial Hodes."
"What will they do?" the girl asked in a small voice.
"I don't imagine they'll pin any medals on us," he replied dryly.
"Why did they have to kill Karfial Hodes?" There was a puzzled, tragic
note in the girl's voice. "He was such a harmless old man."
"Albert Peet can answer that question," Jaro said quietly. "In fact, he
can answer a lot of questions that I intend to ask him. But where can I
hide you?"
"Hide me!" ejaculated Joan. "If you get three feet away I'll scream. I
don't know why I should feel safer when you're here--I've been shot at,
abducted and jailed since I met you--but I do."
For a moment Jaro hesitated, then he fumbled for her wrist in the dark,
found it. "Come on," he said. "We'll see where this passage leads."
They crept ahead, encountered a stair, descended thirty-two steps.
Again they felt their way along a passage, went down a second flight of
steps.
"If this keeps up we'll come out on the under side of Mercury," he
said. "Ouch!" There was a dull thud.
"What was that?" cried Joan.
"Me. I cracked my skull on this confounded ceiling." He paused. "Joan,
we must be on the same level as my cell." He got down on hands and
knees, crawled along the passage, running his fingers across the stones.
"Ah!" he said. His questing fingers had discovered a hole close to the
floor.
"Where are you?" Joan cried.
"Here."
She moved up cautiously until she bumped into him. "Whatever are you
after, groveling on the floor?" she asked greatly relieved.
"I've a hunch," he replied. "Wait here!"
He wormed his way into the hole, found it blocked by the stone.
Delicately, he ran his fingers over its surface seeking its mechanism.
A catch? There it was. He released it, hauled. The stone slid towards
him. Backing out of the hole, he drew the block after him. Joan stifled
a scream as he bumped into her.
With the block clear of the wall, he wriggled back into the hole. If
possible the Stygian blackness was thicker than ever. There should be a
cell on the other side of the wall. He lay still, listened. The silence
was as absolute as the dark. He wormed his way ahead. With a shock he
felt his fingers come in contact with bare flesh. A hand flicked across
his face, clutched his throat with a grip of iron.
Jaro wrenched backward, tried to call out, but that unrelenting grip on
his throat held like a vise, choked off his words. His antagonist never
uttered a sound. Silently, blindly they fought in the four foot square
cell.
Jaro got his hands on his antagonist's wrists, wrenched. His lungs
were on fire, he thought wildly that no sensation was as agonizing as
not being able to draw a breath. The man had succeeded in getting both
hands on his throat. Jaro drew up his legs, kicked. His feet struck
flesh, the iron fingers were torn from his throat. Blessed air poured
into his lungs.
Dimly, he realized that Joan was calling his name from the passage.
Then she screamed.