She could feel rather than see the stronger light that entered as the door was opened; but she had been well blindfolded. She could not even get a glimpse of the ground under her feet. Even a change to lift the bandage for a moment was not given her, for both her wrists were firmly grasped.
"There are some steps down—"
He guided her along what seemed to be a passage, up a few more steps that grated like bare stone under her shoes, round a corner.
"Now there are some stairs."
She climbed them with his hand on her arm guiding her — four flights — and then he opened a door and led her through. In a few more paces he checked her, and she felt something hard pressed against the back of her knees.
"Sit down."
She obeyed. She felt his hands at her wrists, the rough contact of tightening leather straps, and the cold touch of a metal buckle… Then the same thing at her ankles… Four straps held her as firmly as steel chains; and then the handkerchief was untied.
The room in which she found herself was small and dingily furnished. The paper was peeling off the walls, and the carpet was patched and frayed at the edges. There was a truckle bed in one corner, and on a rickety table stood a bottle, a few glasses, and the remains of a sandwich reposing on a piece of newspaper.
She was sitting in a solid oaken chair which seemed to have no place in that room and might even have been acquired for the occasion. The straps which he had just fastened pinned her wrists to the arms of it, and her ankles to the legs, and she knew at once that she would never be able to free herself unaided if she sat there for the rest of her life. So much she knew even before she pitched all her strength against the seasoned leather, and found the little Italian watching her with a kind of detached amusement.
"I do not think you will escape, Mees Trelawney," he said, "so I will excuse myself. I will send my friend away, and then I will come back and talk to you." The bright little eyes gleamed under the brim of his hat. "I have very interesting things to say to you — very interesting."