[CHAPTER X]
MR. HADLEY PROVES A TRUE PROPHET
Burton had reason to congratulate himself on having formed a clear idea of the location of his new room, for he had occasion to use that knowledge in a hurry.
He had dropped into an early and heavy sleep, to make up for his wakeful adventures of the night before, when he was awakened by a succession of screams that seemed to fill the room with vibrating terror. He was on his feet and into his clothes in less time than it would have taken the average man to wake up. While he was dressing another shriek showed that the sounds came from the adjoining house which he had noticed across the driveway. He dropped at once from his window to the roof of a bay window below and thence to the ground. It was a woman shrieking. That was all he knew. He stumbled across the driveway, and found his way to the front door of the house. It was locked. Even while he was trying it, a man from the street dashed up the steps and ran along the porch to a side window, which he threw up.
"Lucky you thought of that," cried Burton, running to the spot. On the instant he recognized Henry Underwood.
"For heaven's sake, if there is trouble here, keep away," he said impetuously, forgetting everything except that this was Leslie's brother.
But Henry had jumped in through the open window without answering, and naturally Burton followed. Together they sprang up the stairway, their way made plain by the low-turned light in the upper hall. At the top a girl stood, screaming in the mechanical, terrified way that he had heard. At the sight of Henry, who was ahead, she shrieked and cowered.
"What is the matter?" Burton demanded. And when she did not answer immediately, he added impatiently: "Tell me at once what frightened you."
She pointed to an open bedroom door, and Burton sprang toward it. It was a curious sight that met his eye.
In a large old-fashioned four-poster a man was lying, gagged and bound,--and not only bound, but trussed and wound about with heavy cord until he looked like a cocoon, or an enlarged Indian papoose, ready to be swung from a drooping branch. His head fell sideways on the pillow in a way that would have been ludicrous, if the whole situation had not been so serious.