But if the strange woman whom Caleb Hook had shadowed was within and awake, she did not reply.
Except the muttered words of the man beside him, not a sound fell upon the detective's ear.
A strange feeling of creeping horror seemed to come over him—a wholly unaccountable feeling, something which he had never experienced before.
Without being able to explain why, even to himself, he was seized with a sudden desire to penetrate behind that plain deal door, upon which his companion was still exercising his knuckles wholly without avail.
Pushing the saloon-keeper to one side, he rapped smartly himself, at the same time grasping the knob in his hand.
It yielded to his grasp—yielded so suddenly and unexpectedly that both the detective and P. Slattery were precipitated forward into the room.
With a cry of horror bursting from his lips the saloon-keeper sprang back toward the door.
"Holy Mother! what mutherin' work is this?" he ejaculated, every several hair upon his fiery pate seeming to rise with terror as he stared at the sight which met the gaze of both Detective Hook and himself.
For there, stretched upon the uncarpeted boards before them, amid surroundings the most poverty stricken, lay a fearful, sickening sight, rendered more plainly visible by the light of a guttering candle standing upon a plain wooden table, which, with a bed and a chair or two, formed the sole furniture of the room.
Nor was the detective scarcely less affected, for the sight which he now beheld was one calculated to move the strongest man.