As our heads topped this floor level, Larry’s hand gripped my arm suddenly. A thin line of light glowed from beneath a door a little way up the hall, toward the front of the house. Larry brought his lips close to my ear again. “ ’Tis the light we saw from the front, sor!” he whispered, so softly that I only just caught the words. “We’ll creep up and listen, try the handle and then, maybe, fling open the door. You’ll be ready, sor?”
I pressed his arm in assent and Larry started to lead the way down the hall. Then another plan occurred to me. I caught his arm and leaned close to him. “How about searching the rest of the house first?” I whispered. The recollection was still vivid of the way I had messed up the affair in Moore’s house, by walking into a trap, and I thought it would be as well to know whether there were others besides the inhabitants of that one room. My idea was based on reason which was well enough, I thought, but again Larry’s instinct was better.
He turned back, however, and we went through the rooms on the top floor above, without finding anything or any one. Then we descended and went through the rooms on that floor. The last one, next to the room with the light, had another door leading into it, beneath which the light showed, and it was in this room that Larry had the bad luck to fall over a small footstool, making a noise which a person in the next room could not fail to hear if he or she were awake. He had fallen to one knee, but he got up again quickly, smothering a curse, and we stood waiting tensely in the darkness.
We could hear no sound from the next room, but suddenly the door we faced was flung open from within and a man stood framed in the light, crouching a little.
He was a big fellow, nearly filling the doorway. He said something that sounded like Russian in a quavering voice, peering into the darkness as he spoke. Then suddenly, before either of us could move, he vanished.
I dashed into the doorway and the room beyond, with Larry close at my heels. The big fellow had his hand on the wall opposite and was just turning away from some instrument there. As I entered I heard a sound like the buzzer which is used to call messengers. I was vaguely conscious that the man held a revolver in my direction as he turned toward me, but I was so intent upon reaching him without loss of time that the fact hardly registered. At any rate, he had no time to fire it, for I was almost on him as he turned.
My fist caught him between the eyes and he dropped with a groan, the revolver falling limply from his hand. Larry was on him like a flash, pocketing his gun. Then I turned to look at the rest of the room.
In the far corner stood Natalie, her eyes wide with terror and her hands tied behind her. There was no recognition in her eyes—only blind apprehension.
“Natalie!” I cried, “Natalie! For God’s sake, what have they done to you?”
The lovely eyes stared at me, and slowly bewilderment first and then recognition dawned in them. Then, with a little cry, she staggered toward me, bound as she was, and into my arms. “Oh,” she cried, “I knew you’d come. I knew you’d come for me!”