He had a hold on her gun wrist before she could move. He was not really such a silly little man as the Saint had called him, and he was much too strong for her. His sudden vicious wrench at her wrist took her unawares, and her automatic clattered down to the stone.
He pushed her roughly away and picked up the gun.
"Now look at my cave!"
She retreated before him. He had changed completely. He was confident, cruel, bestial, transformed. He pointed.
"And Mr. Templar!"
She saw Simon Templar lay stretched out on the floor of the cavern. He was alive. She heard his breath come in a long tortured gasp. About his bare left ankle was locked a contrivance of shining steel, like a pair of skeleton jaws at the end of a length of chain which vanished into the dark stream beside him.
"An invention of my own," said Essenden, in a queerly high-pitched voice, "for the discouragement of poachers. But it has caught something better than a poacher tonight!"
He laughed, squeakily; and suddenly she realized that he was mad.
"Caught!" he babbled. "I hid it in the stream. Whatever happened, I meant to send him down here. Then he would have to step into the stream to get at the safe. Safe! I put that slab in yesterday, myself, just to catch him. I knew that when he didn't come back, you'd bring me down to look for him, and then I'd catch you as well. Those four men upstairs were only part of the surprise I had waiting for you. If I'd seemed too easy, you'd have suspected something. And didn't you see that that was why I pretended I didn't want to come down here? That was to make you all the more determined to bring me down. And it worked!"
He laughed again, a shrill giggle that pricked the hairs on the nape of the girl's neck.