It was a drop of about fourteen feet from the window sill on which I leaned to the roof of the extension below. I dared not risk it. Even suppose I escaped injury, the noise of my fall would warn her, and the moments it would take me to recover my balance might give her time to execute her foul plan. I believed that she had my girl locked in the inner room (else I should surely have heard from Sadie). This would give me one second, while she was unlocking the door—but only one second.
The bed in the room I was in was made up. Always with the same precautions of silence I fashioned a rope sufficiently long out of the two sheets and the cotton spread. I fastened the end of the rope to the leg of a heavy bureau beside the window, and carefully paid it out over the sill. Before trusting myself to it I planned every movement in advance.
I must let myself down face to the building, I decided, until I had almost reached the roof. Then I must drop, and with the reflex of the same movement spring into the woman's room.
It worked all right. I was already inside when she turned around. It was well that it was so, because the door into the inner room stood wide. I saw my girl lying on a couch. Like a flash the woman had the lights out. Quick as a cat she was through the door, knife in hand. But I had got my bearings with that one glimpse. I was hard upon her. I flung my arms around her from behind, pinioning her close. I dragged her back into the outer room. She was surprisingly strong for a woman, but I was just a little stronger. She spit out curses like an angry cat.
I dragged her across the room to where the switch was. I had to take an arm from her to search for it. She renewed her struggles. It took half a dozen attempts. Once she escaped me altogether. She still had the knife. I do not know how I managed to escape injury. She slit my coat with it.
At last I got the blessed light turned on. She was still jabbing at me with the knife, but I could see what I was doing now. The little dog fastened his teeth in my ankle. I kicked him across the room.
Between the two doors I have mentioned there was a third door, which evidently gave on a closet. It had a key in it. I dragged my captive to it, and somehow managed to get it open. I flung her in, knife and all, slammed the door, locked it, and leaned against the frame sobbing for breath. I was half blinded by the sweat in my eyes. The woman was all in, too, or I never should have got the door closed. For a while she lay where she had fallen without sound or movement. When his mistress disappeared the dog ran under the bed. His little pipe was now so hoarse he could scarcely make himself heard.
Presently the woman recovered her forces. Springing up, she hurled herself against the door with as much force as she could gather in that narrow space. The door opened out, and the lock was a flimsy one. I saw that I couldn't keep her there for long. I ran into the inner room.
My dearest girl was lying on a couch, fully dressed and unfettered, but strangely inert, stupefied. I was terrified by her aspect. However, her body was warm and she was breathing, though not naturally. She was not wholly unconscious. Her head moved on the pillow, and her misty eyes sought mine with a faint returning gleam of sentience. Obviously she had been drugged, and the effect was just now beginning to wear off.
I could not stop to restore her there. I gathered her up in my arms, snatched up her hat which was lying near, and ran out through the bedroom. I had no more than got the bedroom door locked behind me, when the door of the closet burst open, and the woman fell out into the room. She immediately threw herself against the other door, but as regarded that, my mind was easier. It was a much heavier affair, and it opened towards her. I need not point out that there is a considerable difference, between bursting a door out, and pulling it in.