Presently Creede’s eyes began to glaze a little. Then they closed. Then they opened and closed again. Then his head sank forward on his breast, and his arms fell limply by his sides. Both the men were watching him intently. Suddenly Tom sprang from his seat and was just in time to catch the inanimate body in his arms, as it was sliding from the chair to the floor.
Tom held up a warning finger to Lionel, who had also started from his chair. For full two minutes he rested on one knee without moving, supporting Creede in his arms. “He is fast now, I think,” he said at last. “Help me to lift him on to the bed.”
When the unconscious law-clerk had been laid on Lionel’s bed, said Tom: “Now help me off with his coat, waistcoat, necktie, collar, and boots.” It was a work of some little difficulty to accomplish all this, but it was done at last. Then, by Tom’s instructions, Creede was stretched on the bed with his face to the wall, in the natural position of a sleeping man, and the bedclothes pulled over him.
Up to the present time Lionel had not asked a single question, but he could contain himself no longer. “In heaven’s name, Bristow, what do all these strange proceedings mean?”
“They mean, Lionel Dering,” said Tom, turning on him gravely, almost sternly, “that I am here to-night for the purpose of effecting your escape.”
“Of effecting my escape!”
“What other purpose do you think would have brought me here in this disguise?”
“But—but——” stammered Lionel, and then he broke down utterly.
“Every minute is precious,” said Tom. “There is no time to argue the case. Put yourself into my hands, and it will go hard but you will be a free man in an hour’s time. Refuse my aid, and in less than three weeks from now you will be lying, a strangled corpse, in a murderer’s grave.”
Lionel shuddered and stared at Tom, but spoke not a single word.