"It was a bit of luck; but we'll talk that over later. Now we've got to get out of here. Can you walk?"
"I don't know, sir; after a fashion, maybe. I'm mighty stiff and numb, sir. Oh, Lord, but that hurts; give me a hand, an' perhaps I can make it."
"Take it easy; work your legs up and down like that; good, that will restore the circulation. How long have you been lying here?"
"I don't know, sir," his voice strengthening. "I must have been hit, the way my head aches. The first thing I knew after I went into that room with you, I was lyin' here in the dark. I couldn't move or speak, sir, an' it was so black, I kind of got it into my head maybe I was dead and buried. If it hadn't been for my hearing things—voices talking, and all that—I guess I would have gone clear batty. Maybe I didn't get everything straight, sir, but one o' them fellows was Hobart, wasn't he?"
"Yes; we walked right into his trap. The fellow who came over to the table and talked to us was Jim Hobart. He knew me at first sight it seems, and easily guessed what we were there for."
"And was Miss Coolidge here too, sir?"
"Yes, she was; I had a talk with her that has mixed me all up, Sexton. She seems to be hand in glove with these fellows. But how did you suspect she was here?"
"I heard her voice, sir; up there somewhere, sir, soon after I come to my senses. She and some man went along outside. Sounded like he was makin' her go with him. I couldn't get much of what was said, but he sure talked awful rough, an' she seemed to be pleadin' with him. They wasn't there but just a minute, an' then, a little later, I heard an automobile start up."
"You have no idea how long ago this was?"
"No, I ain't, sir. I been lyin' here about half dead, I guess, an' I don't seem to have known anything after that, until those fellows come down here with the lantern. Were they hunting after you?"