"Oh!" cried Mary, startled.
She expected to see him fall. But nothing happened. Long Sin laughed. It was an Oriental trick knife in which the blade telescoped into the handle.
"Look at it," he added, handing it to her.
Long Sin took a bladder of water from a table nearby and concealed it under his coat. "Now, you stab me," he directed.
Mary hesitated. But he repeated the command and she plunged the knife gingerly at him. It telescoped. He made her try it over and she stabbed more resolutely. The water from the bladder poured out.
"Good!" cried Long Sin, much pleased. "Now," he added, seating himself beside her, "I want you to lure Elaine here."
Mary looked at him inquiringly as he returned the knife to its scabbard on the wall. "Remember where it is," he continued. "Now, if you will come into the other room I will show you how to get her."
I had been amusing myself by rigging up a contrivance by which I could make it possible to see through or rather over, a door. The idea had been suggested to me by the cystoscope which physicians use in order to look down one's throat, and I had calculated that by using three mirrors placed at proper angles, I could easily reflect rays down to the level of my eye.
Kennedy, who had been busy in the other end of the laboratory, happened to look over in my direction. "What's the big idea, Walter?" he asked.
It was, I admit, a rather cumbersome and clumsy affair.