Mr. Banks snatched his hand back to his own side of the pierced partition, at the same time uttering a sharp cry of dismay. Nothing had hurt him; but in the blackness beyond his own narrow blackness his fingers had encountered flesh—the flesh of a human nose and eyebrow. He sagged back on his haunches, limp and trembling. Whatever he had expected to find, this was not it.
"Who is there? Speak! Who is there?" he whispered.
No voice answered him; but again he heard that thin rapping, like the flipping of a finger against a hard, dry surface. It was a trifle louder this time, but in exactly the same position.
"Can't you speak? Speak, for Heaven's sake!" cried Banks.
This time he was answered by a low, muffled, strangled groan. He searched his pockets again, with shaking fingers; and, at last, in a little roll of woolen dust in the corner of his match pocket, he found one wax match. This first seemed such a great and joyful thing to him that he had difficulty in restraining his laughter.
"Wigmore, you old devil, here's where I have you at last!" he exclaimed. "You're a fool! You should have picked my pockets thoroughly while you were about it. This little match will prove your undoing—as sure as my name is Harvey P. Banks!"
He began to chuckle—and the sound of his chuckling quieted and steadied him in a flash. "That won't do," he said. "That sounds downright idiotic. I must keep a grip on myself."
With his left hand he found a safe and suitable spot on the wall for the striking of the precious match; and then, with his trembling right hand, he struck it. The little flame hissed into existence, then caught the wax, and burned clear and quiet. He crouched low, and thrust the burning match through the hole in the lath and plaster, and into the chamber beyond, by the length of his arm. The hole was about three feet long and twelve or fifteen inches wide. He shuffled forward and thrust his head between the jaws of ragged plaster and splintered laths.
The match lit a closet even smaller than the one in which Banks lay. Banks beheld rough walls, a sloping roof, a door, and, directly under his hand, a small human figure, bound and gagged.
"Timothy Fletcher!" he exclaimed. "So this is New York—for you!"