The worst of it was that as I'd allowed myself to be trapped, it was difficult to see how anything could be done. My theory that I'd been let into a secret, because I should never be in a position to betray it, seemed to be the true one. But my fury at Donald's state gave me a sense of superabundant strength. I felt like Samson, able to pull down the pillars of the Temple.
"You're—too late!" the man on the mattress sighed, his voice strange and weak, sounding almost like a voice speaking through a telephone at "long distance." "But I'm glad to see you, Jack! I've thought of you. I've longed for you. Tell me—about Irene. Does she—believe I'm dead?"
"She's in New York, dear old boy," I said, evading his question.
His eyes lighted. It seemed that a faint colour stained his ash-white cheeks. "She came—to look for me! Oh, Jack, she did love me, then!"
"Of course," I answered truly enough: for she had loved him before everything went wrong. Even if I hadn't been as sure of Don's loyalty as of my own, I should have known by the radiance of his face. If he had stolen her jewels, he would not be coming back from death to life in the illusion that love had brought her across the sea.
"Thank God!" he breathed. "I can die in peace—but no, not yet. There's a thing I must tell you first, It's the thing they've kept me here to get out of me. They've tried every way they knew—torture, starvation, bribes of freedom; everything. They'd have killed me long ago, only if they had they could never have got the secret. But—how is it you're here? Is it another trick of theirs?"
As soon as I heard the word "secret" the mystery was clear. I was the catspaw with which the chestnuts were to be pulled out of the fire. If Doctor Rameses was the man who held us both, his intention was evidently to kill two birds, two rare and valuable birds, with one stone. How he had got Donald Allendale into his clutches I didn't know yet, though I soon should: but having him, and learning that he and I had been friends, he saw how to trap me securely and through me learn Don's secret.
Almost without telling I knew that the secret must concern Irene's jewels, which were worth at least twenty thousand pounds; a haul not to be despised. Bending over Don, I lifted my head and looked around. I was sure that a knothole in the wooden wall had come into being within the last five minutes. If there'd been an aperture there, it had been stuffed with rags, now noiselessly withdrawn. It was distant not a yard from Donald's face as he lay on the mattress, and a person crouching on the floor outside could catch every word, unless we whispered. Somebody had deduced that the prisoner would open his heart to me. The "secret" would thus become the property of those who coveted it; and once it was in their possession Donald and I could be suppressed. Thus the two birds would be felled with that one cleverly directed stone—so cleverly directed that I was sure of the hand which had placed it in the sling.
It was a case of kill or cure, to startle poor Don; but there was no other way, and I took the one I saw. "Yes," I said, "they got me here by a trick, but I don't regret coming. On the contrary. They—whoever they are—want to hear what you tell me. But we can prevent that. Let me help you to the other side of the mattress farther from that knothole, and you'll whisper what you have to say. If that annoys anyone—I know there are people made nervous by whispering!—why, they can come in, and get a warm welcome. Put the story into few words; and then we'll be prepared for the next thing."
It was a tonic I had given him. He threw a look of disgust and rage at the knothole, which was dark because, no doubt, the lights had been turned down outside to make our cubicle seem lighter. Sitting up without my help, Don flung himself to the other side of the mattress; and as I knelt beside him, whispered. Unless they had a concealed dictaphone the secret was safe.