“Is that you, Ella?” Deede Dawson called back. “Come down here.”
“I can't,” she answered. “I'm fastened to a chair.”
“I didn't hurt the young lady,” Dunn interposed quickly. “I only tied her up as gentle as I could to a chair so as to stop her from interfering.”
“Oh, that's it, is it?” said Deede Dawson, and seemed a little amused, as though the thought of his stepdaughter's plight pleased him rather than not. “Well, if she can't come down here, we'll go up there. Turn round, my man, and go up the stairs and keep your hands over your head all the time. I shan't hesitate to shoot if you don't, and I never miss.”
Dunn was not inclined to value his life at a very high price as he turned and went awkwardly up the stairs, still holding his hands above his head.
But he meant to save it if he could, for many things depended on it, among them due punishment to be exacted for the crime he had discovered this night; and also, perhaps, for the humiliation he was now enduring.
CHAPTER VIII. CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE
Up the stairs, across the landing, and down the passage opposite Dunn went in silence, shepherded by the little man behind whose pistol was still levelled and still steady.
His hands held high in the air, he pushed open with his knee the door of the girl's room and entered, and she looked up as he did so with an expression of pure astonishment at his attitude of upheld hands that changed to one of comprehension and of faint amusement as Deede Dawson followed, revolver in hand.