I waited, dreading lest I should be suddenly attacked. Then, summoning courage, I suddenly sprang out of the chair on the side opposite the table, and dashed across to where showed that narrow streak of light.
I saw that it came through the lower crevice of the heavy wooden shutters. With frantic haste my hands slid over them. I found an iron bar, and, this unlatched, I threw them back, and let in the broad light of day.
For a moment my eyes were dazzled by the sunlight.
Then, on looking behind me, I saw that upon the table the candle had burned itself to its socket, while on the floor, near by, lay the small black reptile stretched out motionless.
I feared at first to approach it. To its tail the cord was still attached, but it had been severed. I crept towards it, and, bending down, realized with great relief that it was dead.
The leathern collar which had secured my head had been loosened and the mechanism of the chair reversed, allowing me my freedom. I looked around the room in wonder. There stood the littered card-table and the empty glasses of the previous night, while the air was still heavy with the odour of stale cigars.
Making quite certain that the reptile was dead, I turned my attention to the chair, and noted how cleverly the devilish mechanism had been hidden. It could, as I had suspected, be worked from without. The victim, once seated there, had no chance whatever of escape.
In the light of day, the room—that fatal apartment wherein more than one innocent man had, no doubt, met with a horrible end—looked very shabby and dingy. The furniture was cheap and tawdry, and the carpet very dirty.
There, upon the card-table, stood the ink, while the pen used by Reckitt lay upon the floor. My wallet lay open near by. I took it up quickly to glance through its contents. As far as I could discover, nothing had been taken except the cheque I had written out, believing I was to assist Jack Marlowe.
Eagerly I glanced at my watch, and found it was already a quarter past ten.