"Then we really prevented them?" I said eagerly, feeling the bandages about my head.
"Just in the very nick of time, old man," he replied. "And we did more. We managed to save Miss Nella."
"How?" I inquired eagerly.
"She's here. She'll tell you herself." And next moment I saw her standing before me with the Professor.
"Yes, Mr. Jacox," the girl said. "I have come to thank you. I was first approached by the young Italian while crossing Richmond Bridge one day, and later on he introduced me to his sister, who lived in St. Margaret's. On the afternoon when I was induced to go there I was given something in my tea which at once rendered me unconscious. When I recovered, I found myself lying in a coffin secured to rings inside, while a villainous old man, a bearded German, and an Italian woman were about to screw down the lid. I screamed, but they took no notice, until in fear I fainted. Ah! shall I ever forget those horrible moments? I was alone, helpless in the hands of those fiends, all because I had allowed myself to become attracted by a stranger! They held me there for days, trying to learn from me the secret of my father's discovery. But I would tell them nothing. Ah! how I suffered, believing every hour that they would close down that lid. Then the brutes, finding me defiant, and believing that no one was aware of their existence, hit upon another device—sending a false telegram to my father from Liverpool, and thus taking him away from the house in order to be afforded a clear field for their investigations. Of this I, of course, knew nothing until your friends entered the house forcibly with the police and found me still imprisoned—ah! yes! ready for death and burial."
And then the strange old Professor, stepping forward, seized my hand warmly in his, saying:
"To you and your two good friends, Mr. Jacox, the country owes a great and deep debt of gratitude. I was foolish in disregarding your timely warning, for my dear daughter very nearly lost her life, because the blackguards knew she had assisted me in my experiments and had made the notes at my dictation, while Britain very nearly lost the secret upon which, in the near future, will depend her supremacy at sea."