On this floor too, rooms, intersecting passages and unexpected entrances formed a positive maze, leading a man sometimes far afield and sometimes back to his starting-place, none the wiser. However, if one of the men with us was away exploring for more than a moment or two, the Chief blew his whistle and guided him back again. But for the first few moments it seemed as though we were the only living things on that floor.
However, we had a stroke of luck at last. One of the Chief’s men was struggling with a small, heavy and heavily secured door a little way along a side passage, when I heard a commotion in that direction which set my blood racing. For there was no mistaking the rich brogue of that bitterly denunciatory voice.
“Do but let me out av ut, ye divils,” I heard in tones almost tearful with rage, “and I’ll tache ye. Do but lave me get my hands on ye——”
I jumped forward and joined the man at the door. “Larry,” I called, “is that you?”
There came a distinctly audible gasp from behind the door. “Shur, sor, is that yersilf? I thought it was thim dirty knav—— But did they get ye, too, sor? Can ye let me out to ye and we’ll go after thim together.”
“Hold on, Larry,” I answered, stifling a strong desire to burst out laughing, partly with relief to find him alive and partly at his simple philosophy, “hold on and we’ll get you out of it in a minute. We’ve taken the place and all’s well.”
A moment or two later the lock snapped and the door swung open, and a wild-eyed, wildly disheveled and almost naked Larry burst out upon us.
In a rushing spate of words he told us that they had as good as tortured him to glean the facts about myself and my connection with the Secret Service. But there was little that he did know and he had not told that. However, he had been locked up ever since they took him, and he had seen no one of our friends in the place. He was painfully apologetic about Natalie, but I deferred that explanation until our work was over. And with Larry in our wake we took up our search again. I had a warm glow in my heart, though, to find that nothing had happened to the beggar, for I was fonder of Larry than I had realized until after his capture.
At the end of the original corridor we found a heavy door, and beneath the edge of it a steady light was shining. We came upon it suddenly, as the corridor took a sharp turn at this point.
When the Chief saw the light he held us back by putting out his arms. One of the men flashed his torch on to the lock, and we saw that the key was in the door and on our side. But the sight of the light made us hesitate for a moment.