“Mr. Quest,” he declared, “you’ve got the biggest nerve of any man I have ever known.”
The criminologist smiled.
“This sort of bully is always a coward when it comes to the pinch,” he remarked.
Crouching in her chair, her pale, terror-stricken face supported between her hands, Lenora, her eyes filled with hopeless misery, gazed at the dumb instrument upon the table. Her last gleam of hope seemed to be passing. Her little friend was silent. Once more her weary fingers spelt out a final, despairing message.
“What has happened to you? I am waiting to hear all the time. Has Craig told you where I am? I am afraid!”
There was still no reply. Her head sank a little lower on to her folded arms. Even the luxury of tears seemed denied her. Fear, the fear which dwelt with her day and night, had her in its grip. Suddenly she leaped, screaming, from her place. Splinters of glass fell all around her. Her first wild thought was of release; she gazed upwards at the broken pane. Then very faintly from the street below she heard the shout of a boy’s angry voice.
“You’ve done it now, Jimmy! You’re a fine pitcher, ain’t you? Lost it, that’s what you’ve gone and done!”
The thoughts formed themselves mechanically in her mind. Her eyes sought the ball which had come crashing into the room. There was life once more in her pulses. She found a scrap of paper and a pencil in her pocket. With trembling fingers she wrote a few words:
“Police head-quarters. I am Sanford Quest’s assistant, abducted and imprisoned here in the room where the ball has fallen. Help! I am going mad!”