There was a yell of fury from the man on the floor, a splintering of glass, then darkness—inky, pitchy, smothering darkness—dropped like a heavy pall over the room, and blotted everything.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE FACE IN THE CANDLELIGHT.
A second later the hall door was burst open, and a voice sounded from the opening: "What's up, Joyce? Has he got away?"
A flood of imprecations answered him as the detective scrambled painfully from his feet.
"You fool!" he roared. "Strike a light, quick! Don't stand there like a dummy. Strike a light! He's in this room—he can't get away! Where in blazes is that gun of mine? A-h!"
The tiny, wavering flame from a match clove the inky blackness, and showed Joyce crouching near the mantel, the recovered automatic ready in one hand, and his keen, dark eyes roving swiftly about the barren place.
For a moment he did not move a muscle; then, with an oath, he sprang to his feet. The flickering flame made odd, grotesquely dancing shadows in the corners of the room, but aside from the detective and his assistant by the door, there was no one else there. Lawrence had disappeared.
"He's slipped into the front room!" snapped Joyce. "He can't get out of the house—that's impossible! Where's my flash light? Yell down to the boys to be on the lookout. They mustn't stir from the foot of the stairs. You go down and get that lantern out of the kitchen. We've got to have light, and my blooming battery's gone."
He had scarcely spoken when the match burned out, and darkness infolded them again.