There was no mistaking the manner of man with whom I had to deal, and I obeyed; but my mind was busy with a hundred projects. Very neatly the girl bound my wrists, and in response to a slight nod from Dexter threw the end of the line up over a beam in the sloping ceiling, for the room was right under the roof, and drew it up in such a way that, my wrists being raised behind me, I became utterly helpless. It was an ingenious device indicating considerable experience.
"Just tie his handkerchief around his mouth," directed Dexter: "that will keep him quiet long enough for our purpose. I hope you will be released soon, Mr. Cavanagh," he added. "Greatly regret the necessity."
Carneta bound the handkerchief over my mouth.
Dexter extinguished the gas.
"Mr. Cavanagh," he said, "I've gone through hell and I've lost the most useful four fingers and a thumb in the United States to get hold of the Prophet's slipper. Any one can have it that's open to pay for it — but I've got to retire on the deal, so I'll drive a hard bargain! Good-night!"
There was a sound of retreating footsteps, and I heard the entrance door close quietly.
Chapter 18
WHAT CAME THROUGH THE WINDOW
I had not been in my unnatural position for many minutes before I began to suffer agonies, agonies not only physical but mental; for standing there like some prisoner of the Inquisition, it came to me how this dismantled apartment must be the focus of the dreadful forces of Hassan of Aleppo!
That Earl Dexter had the slipper of the Prophet I no longer doubted, and that he had sustained, in this dwelling beneath the roof, an uncanny siege during the days which had passed since the theft from the Antiquarian Museum, was equally certain. Helpless, gagged, I pictured those hideous creatures, evil products of the secret East, who might, nay, who must surround that place! I thought of the horrible little yellow man who lay dead in Wyatt's Buildings; and it became evident to me that the house in which I was now imprisoned must overlook the back of those unsavoury tenements. The windows, sack-covered now, no doubt commanded a view of the roofs of the buildings. One of the mysteries that had puzzled us was solved. It was Earl Dexter who had shot the yellow dwarf as he was bound for this very room! But how humanly the Hashishin had proposed to gain his goal, how he had travelled through empty space — for from empty space the shot had brought him down — I could not imagine.