Where was he and in what sort of trap?
Slowly the adventures of the last few hours came back to his excited brain.
He recalled the note, the visit to the house on Hester Street, the fall through the trapdoor and the burning ball.
These thoughts came fast and thick; they seemed to contend for supremacy in his brain and he breathed hard.
“I must get out,” was his cry. “Woman or tigress, she shall not keep me in this vile place!”
But getting out was the puzzle.
He circumnavigated his prison like a captive in the dungeons of Venice.
He sounded every foot of space, stood on his tiptoes in a vain effort to reach the ceiling, felt the walls again and again and at last gave up.
For once at least the famous detective seemed at the end of life.