“‘No,’ he returned. ’Give it to me, or tell me where it is, and then I will loosen the cord.’
“‘It is not here—it—it is down-stairs,’ I replied, inspired by a sudden hope. If I could only get down-stairs, I thought, I might contrive to reach the door that let out of the house. Then, lame though I was, and weak and sick, I might, by a supreme effort, elude my persecutors—attain the street—summon help—and thus, not only escape myself, but defeat the criminal enterprise that they were bent upon. It was a crazy notion. At another moment I should have scouted it. But at that moment it struck me as wholly rational—as, at any rate, well worth venturing. I did not give myself time to consider it very carefully. It made haste from my mind to my lips. ’The paper,’ I said, ’is down-stairs.’
“‘Down-stairs?’ queried Bernard Peixada, tightening the cord a little; ’where down-stairs?’
“‘In—in the parlor—in the book-case—shut up in a book,’ I answered.
“‘In what book?’
“‘I can not tell you. But I could put my hand upon it, if I were there. After I took it from the safe—you were absent from the house—I—oh, for mercy’s sake, don’t, don’t tighten that—I crawled down-stairs—ah, that is better; loosen it a little——I crawled down to the parlor—and—and shut it up in a book. I don’t remember what book. But I could find it for you if I were there.’ In the last quarter hour, Mr. Hetzel, I, who had recoiled from lying at the outset, had become somewhat of an adept at that art, as you perceive.
“Bernard Peixada exchanged a glance with Edward Bolen; then said to me, ’All right. Come down-stairs with us.’
“He removed the instrument of torture. A wave of pain more sickening than any I had yet endured, swept through my body, as the ligature was relaxed, and the blood flowed throbbing back into my disabled foot. I got up and hobbled as best I could across the floor, out through the hall, down the stairs. Edward Bolen preceded me. Bernard Peixada followed.
“At the bottom of the stairs I had to halt and lean against the bannister for support. I was weak and faint.
“‘Go light the gas in the parlor, Bolen,’ said Bernard Peixada.