He had snapped a pair of police handcuffs on his wrists, as Clement knew, but before that he had put another pair on his ankles; these were linked by a heavy chain to a staple in the wall. The chain was padlocked.
Clement lifted the jug of water with both hands, took a long drink, and then examined the handcuffs on his wrists. In less than a minute one wrist was free. It was quite simple. These handcuffs were ratcheted to take several sizes in wrists. In his hurry the thin man had not pushed the ratchet of the right cuff beyond the first notch. Clement was what might be called a third notch man—hence he had no difficulty in slipping his wrist out.
The leg irons presented a graver problem. Unable to get them off with his hands, he searched about for some means of removing them. He was lucky. With difficulty he unearthed from a box full of odd tools, a hacksaw. With this slowly and patiently, and with his attention always alert for movements in the house, he sawed through the connecting links of the ankle irons.
It was a tedious and painful business. He heard the mid-day “break” sound from scores of factory sirens, but he worked on trying not to think of what might be happening to Heloise.
She would remain on in Quebec, he told himself. She could not hurry away, she would not leave without seeing him. He tried to convince himself of this. He would see her in spite of this trap. And after he had talked with her the whole bad business would be ended.
If he thought of Mr. Neuburg and his cunning, he said to himself, “He thinks he has me here safely. He won’t attempt to attract attention by hustling things.”
It was after two o’clock when he got free. Nobody had come up to him. He had thought this would be the case since a day’s supply of food had been left with him. Concealing the ankle cuffs under his socks, and that on his left wrist up his sleeve, he lay down and looked out of the window.
It was overlooking the yard he had studied yesterday from the cliff behind. In that yard nothing was stirring save the “puff-puff-puff” of the steam pipe. From this window to the yard was a sheer drop of some seventy feet. On the other hand, the thin, topmost upright of the fire escape was two feet away from the window, and level with it—if he dared risk that.
He meant to. He forced the dirt-gummed window open, and, laying flat on his stomach, wriggled his body inch by inch out of the narrow window. It was soul chilling. To find himself poised there half in and half out of that tube of a window, with nothing to aid him, and with that horrible drop beneath him, unnerved him. He felt himself slipping, going. For one moment he seemed to be clawing the empty air, with the feeling that nothing could save him. He was dropping—
Then in a flash his nerve came back. He lunged forward and grasped the slender iron girder of the escape, and there for an agonized moment he hung swaying, helpless. He made a giant effort. The thin iron of the fire escape support creaked and appeared to bend toward him. He heard the structure groan. His feet came away suddenly, and his knees and thighs struck the iron pole with excruciating pain. But the instinct of preservation caused his limbs to act almost, it appeared, on their own initiative. Just as his hands seemed about to be torn loose by his weight, his legs circled the iron support and gripped. He slid downward. In a moment he was crouching on the top platform of the fire escape behind a rain-water barrel.