The end of a pipe it certainly was, and sticking out into the room, but where it led to, and why it had been cut off in this peculiar fashion, were two questions I could no more answer than I could fly.
"Does it run out into the street, do you think?" was Beckenham's immediate query. "If so, you might manage to call through it to some passer-by, and ask him to obtain assistance for us!"
"A splendid notion if I could get my mouth anywhere within a foot of it, but as this chain will not permit me to do that, it might as well be a hundred miles off. It's as much as I can do to touch it with my fingers."
"Do you think if you had a stick you could push a piece of paper through? We might write a message."
"Possibly, but there's another drawback to that. I haven't the necessary piece of stick."
"Here is a stiff piece of straw; try that."
He harpooned a piece of straw, about eight inches long, across the room towards me, and, when I had received it, I thrust it carefully into the pipe. A disappointment, however, was in store for us.
"It's no use," I reported sorrowfully, as I threw the straw away. "It has an elbow half-way down, and that would prevent any message from being pushed through."
"Then we must try to discover some other plan. Don't lose heart!"
"Hush! I hear somebody coming."