Ginger shouted a warning through the house to Blossom, and waited to liberate Greg. This took him a little while, because De Socotra had tossed away the keys at random. Greg shouted to Ginger to open the middle door, but in his excitement Ginger did not get the sense of it. He struck innumerable matches until he found the key to the back room.
Meanwhile de Socotra had leaped down two flights of stairs unhindered, for Estuban dared not leave the three men he was covering. On the third flight de Socotra saw Blossom waiting for him at the foot and went over the rail. He dropped in the middle of the hall and ran into one of the parlors. Here, as Blossom chased him in and out the different doors, he began to shout for help in tones of mock fear.
These cries were too much for Bull and Hickey on the floor below. Locking the doors at which they respectively stood guard, they sprang up to the parlor floor. This was evidently what de Socotra wanted. He led them all a chase through the dark rooms. They collided with each other and wasted their strength in vain struggles, thinking they had the fugitive. When he saw the way clear de Socotra ran on down the basement stairs.
By this time Greg and Ginger reached the first floor. They heard de Socotra running wildly back and forth in the basement below. Bull and Hickey had had the foresight to pocket the keys of the two doors and he could not get out. All the windows in the basement were barred. As Greg leaped down the basement stairs with the other men tumbling after he heard the cellar door bang open. There was no way out of the cellar except by the coal-hole.
"We've got him now!" he cried.
He was well assured that if de Socotra had had a gun he would have used it before this, and he followed unhesitatingly. At the head of the next stair he heard the furnace door clang and his heart sunk like a stone. The gaslight in the cellar was still burning brightly. De Socotra stood by the furnace stroking his mustache, panting a little, but smiling still. His hands were empty.
Disregarding him for the moment Greg flung open the furnace door. On the bed of cherry red coals the little black book was already furiously blazing. A hand thrust in to rescue it would have been shriveled to the bone. There was no suitable tool handy. Greg had the inexpressible mortification of seeing it fall apart and dissolve in the flames. An involuntary groan broke from him. De Socotra laughed.
Greg flung around furiously, his gun up. "Damn you! I ought to shoot you like a dog, you murderer!" he cried.
"But you won't," said de Socotra coolly.
It was true. Greg's pistol arm was rendered impotent, but not, as de Socotra thought, because he was intimidated. He turned away gritting his teeth.