He grinned, wryly, out of the corner of his mouth.
“You sure pack a hefty wallop, young fellow! I wish I could tell you somethin’, but that man Rook, he’s as close-mouthed as an Indian, and that’s whatever! His game—nobody knows what it is—Lunn, maybe—but they sure got a strangle-hold on th’ county; it won’t be healthy for me here after tonight.”
The three men separated at the hotel, Annister entering the lobby with a curious depression that abruptly deepened to a sudden, crawling fear as a call-boy brought him a note. The fear was not for himself, but for another, for, although he had never seen the handwriting before, he knew it upon the instant.
Ripping open the envelope with fingers that trembled, he read, and at what he saw his face paled slowly to a mottled, unhealthy gray:
“Partner:
“If you get this in time, please hurry. I’m in the toils, at Dr. Elphinstone’s—it’s the stone house at the right of the road leading north from Dry Bone—twenty miles, I think. I’ve bribed a man to take this to you, and if he fails me, God help me!—God help us all! If you fail me, you’ll never see me again—as Mary Allerton, because the Devil’s in charge here, and they call him the Jailer of Souls. I’ll be watching for you, at the south window—you’ll know it by the red ribbon on the bars. And now—be careful. If you get here at night beware of the guards—there are three. And if it’s night there’ll be a rope hanging from the window—you can feel for it in the dark. Now hurry.
“MARY ALLERTON (No. 33).”
“You’ll never see me again—as Mary Allerton.” Annister was aware again of that crawling fear. “The red ribbon on the bars.” The place was in effect a prison, then.
But—“No. 33”! Annister’s heart leaped up. He knew the meaning of those numerals well enough; he had been blind not to have suspected it. But “Dr. Elphinstone,” and “The Jailer of Souls!”
Who could be the jailer of souls but the Devil? And Annister fancied that he had seen the Devil at the corner of that street under the moon, with his black, forking beard, and the cold eyes of death.