"How--how--how did you do it?" gasped the warden, finally.
"Come back to the cell," said The Thinking Machine, in the irritated voice which his scientific associates knew so well.
The warden, still in a condition bordering on trance, led the way.
"Flash your light in there," directed The Thinking Machine.
The warden did so. There was nothing unusual in the appearance of the cell, and there--there on the bed lay the figure of The Thinking Machine. Certainly! There was the yellow hair! Again the warden looked at the man beside him and wondered at the strangeness of his own dreams.
With trembling hands he unlocked the cell door and The Thinking Machine passed inside.
"See here," he said.
He kicked at the steel bars in the bottom of the cell door and three of them were pushed out of place. A fourth broke off and rolled away in the corridor.
"And here, too," directed the erstwhile prisoner as he stood on the bed to reach the small window. He swept his hand across the opening and every bar came out.
"What's this in the bed?" demanded the warden, who was slowly recovering.