He shuddered and as he put his foot on the lowest stair he raised his hands to cover his face as though to shut out the visions that passed before him.
Another step forward he took in the darkness, and all at once there flashed upon him the light of a strong electric torch, suddenly switched on.
“Put up your hands,” said a voice sharply. “Or you're a dead man.”
He looked bewilderedly, taken altogether by surprise, and saw he was faced by a fat little man with a smooth, chubby, smiling face and eyes that were cold and grey and deadly, and who held in one hand a revolver levelled at his heart.
“Put up your hands,” this newcomer said again, his voice level and calm, his eyes intent and deadly. “Put up your hands or I fire.”
CHAPTER VII. QUESTION AND ANSWER
Dunn obeyed promptly.
There was that about this little fat, smiling man and his unsmiling eyes which proclaimed very plainly that he was quite ready to put his threat into execution.
For a moment or two they stood thus, each regarding the other very intently. Dunn, his hands in the air, the steady barrel of the other's pistol levelled at his heart, knew that never in all his adventurous life had he been in such deadly peril as now, and the grotesque thought came into his mind to wonder if there were room for two in that packing-case in the attic.