“No, I didn’t,” he stammered. “Not that. I swear I didn’t do that. Look here, I’ll be quite honest. I confess I took the papers. The professor admitted me in the dusk, thinking it was you. He was working, and the safe was open. I asked to refer to the system, and he brought it to me. Then he saw who it was. We struggled, and I gave him a touch of chloroform, a mere touch, not enough to harm him. When I came away he was sleeping like a baby. I took the papers, closed the safe and left very quietly. That’s all I know. He was found later, stabbed to the heart. I did not do it. I swear to that.”
Aghast, incapable of action, Hugh stood staring at him. Then as quickly as he had weakened Vulning recovered himself, and started forward, tense, tigerish.
“I’ve told you too much,” he snarled. He covered Hugh with his revolver.
“You dog! I hate you. You refuse to give up what you know,—well then, there’s only one thing left,—to make you. Ho! there.”
At his shout the door was thrown open. Bob Bender and the one-eyed chauffeur rushed in.
“Quick. That rope in the corner! Tie him up. Steady there, you young hound; or I’ll shoot.”
The chauffeur and Bob Bender threw themselves on Hugh. In spite of Vulning’s threat, he struggled fiercely. It was not until the chauffeur had pinioned and tripped him that he fell heavily. The three men held him down, and trussed him so that he could not move. He lay helpless, gazing up at them and panting painfully.
“Ah,” said Vulning, “that was hard. Let me get my breath....”
He regarded Hugh malevolently. As he lit a cigarette, his eyes were sinister in their cruelty.
“He refuses to do what we want, boys. There’s only one thing left, regrettable though it is; we’ve got to make him. Prop him up against the wall.”