Who was there to help? The American Consul was powerless for the time, if he could be found. Warren knew that the portion of the city where he had lived was a shapeless ruin.
The boy continued to sit motionless in his chair, desperately, desperately puzzling the dark mystery.
Gradually in Warren's dazed mind the whole affair took definite shape. They were gone; arrested on suspicion. For the moment at least he felt sure they were safe, even in the hands of an enemy who had shown themselves utterly cruel and heartless. He felt sure that if they were suspected of being spies every effort would be made to make them confess before they were executed, if it did indeed come near that question.
But "Find Ivan." What did that mean? Evidently Ivan was not with them. As though in answer to his thought, Warren heard or thought he heard a faint shout. He listened. It was repeated, with a sound of pounding and banging. Once more Warren searched the house, beginning with the old dusty, rambling attic set close under the great beams of the old house. Down he hurried, from room to room, looking in presses, under beds, and listening in each room.
As he reached the kitchen, the sound seemed clearer. It was Ivan's voice. He opened the cellar stairs and went down. Once, years, even generations past, the house had been the residence of a noble. The cellar was not the one or two rooms of the modern house. It was vast and vaulted and contained a dozen dark, unlighted apartments, all with heavy, iron-barred, oaken doors.
Professor Morris said that two of the rooms had been used as dungeons and it was in one of these that Warren found Ivan. He stumbled over him as he opened the door. The boy was bound, but lying on his back, so had been able to hammer on the door with his feet. The sound of pounding had carried even better than his shouts.
Warren hastily untied the cords that secured him and helped him up the stairs. He was stiff and sore from the cramped position, but once in the upper rooms, he took a deep breath, and proceeded to tell Warren the events of the morning.
Once more Professor Morris was the cause of the disaster. The Professor was, fortunately, of uncommon type. He was a modest man—so modest that it even ceased to be a virtue, and became an annoying and irritating trait. He never stood up for himself, nor for his family in any way.
The saying, "Generous to a fault" likewise applied to him. He was a spendthrift in kindness, giving not only money needed for himself and the children, but bestowing his time when he needed it himself. His learning he gave recklessly, too, writing long, learned articles for little or no pay, and without a thought that the material given away was just so much capital.
But of one thing he was jealous, careful and touchy. His book, his almost completed work on Warsaw. It was to be a book of books, so clear, so accurate, so full of new f acts that it would be a treasure among the literary treasures of his time. Professor Morris believed in the book with the conviction that comes to writers when they have done something really good. He knew it was fine. It was more than a history of the beautiful and fated city. It was written in such golden, flowing English that the hardest and driest facts in its pages were polished and placed like jewels of great price in their descriptive setting. And they were jewels. He had mined them out of strange places in that ancient town. He had taken his time and in digging for his beloved facts, he had found many an unexpected wonder.