CHAPTER IV
MARY FAUST
“HERE is where I saw Miss Mayne last,” said Jack, as he and Jim paused before a massive door studded with iron nails, in the western end of a high cement wall, on which the shadows of the trees bordering the avenue were thrown by the noon sun. “It’s just twenty-one hours since that door opened, and she went in.”
“What opened it, boss?” inquired the gnome. “I don’t see no handle.”
Jack thought a minute. “She pressed her thumb on one of those nails,” he said. “I think it was this one,” and he laid a finger on the third nail from the west edge of the door, four feet down from the top. Jim examined the nail carefully.
“Guess yer right, boss,” he muttered. “That ain’t no real nail, it’s the top of a spring. Will I try a punch on it?”
“Wait!” said Jack, arresting his hand. “As I remember, she pressed it in a particular way—like this!” He pressed the nail-head, which yielded to the impulse; then twice again, in rapid succession; then a fourth punch after a moment’s interval. The door swung heavily inward, and the two companions stepped quickly within. They found themselves in a spacious garden, planted with flowers and ornamental bushes; a path led up to a house made of gray stone, with an iron dome thirty feet in diameter projecting from its roof. Jim, after a glance around, shut the door behind them, and hobbled after Jack, who was advancing up the path. In a few moments they reached a doorway on the east side of the building, at the top of a short flight of steps. Jack laid a hand on the latch, which yielded, and the two entered. They passed down a corridor, which brought them to a stairway. Up the stairs they went, Jim’s crutch tapping on each step as they ascended. The stair wound upward for a considerable distance; at length they emerged on the landing, and saw another door, with a heavy blue curtain hanging before it. As Jack stepped toward it, it was pushed aside from within, and a tall figure in a dark robe stood before them.
“Who are you? What do you want?” asked the figure. The voice, quiet and deep, was evidently a woman’s. The face, pale, with regular features and level, dark brows, might almost have been a man’s, such was the power and firmness of its expression.
Jack’s eyes met hers intently. He was sending the whole force of his nature into the gaze, and she was conscious of it; they measured each other.
“Jack Paladin—a friend of Miriam Mayne’s,” he said after a moment. “I parted from her at your door yesterday afternoon—you are Mme. Faust, I suppose? She has not been seen since. Her father sent me here. Is she here?”
“Does her father think she is here?”