Yes. I was helpless there, in the hands of my enemies. I, wary as I believed myself to be, had fallen into a trap cunningly prepared by that clever woman who was Digby's accomplice.
I now believed all that Edwards had told me of the man's cunning and his imposture. How that he had assumed the identity of a clever and renowned man who had died so mysteriously in South America. Perhaps he had killed him—who could tell?
As these bitter thoughts regarding the man whom I had looked upon as a friend flitted through my brain, I saw to my amazement, standing boldly before me, the woman Petre with two men, one a dark-bearded, beetle-browed, middle-aged man of Hindu type—a half-caste probably—while the other was the young man who had admitted me.
The Hindu bent until his scraggy whiskers almost touched my cheek, looking straight into my eyes with keen, intent gaze, but without speaking.
I saw that the young man had carried a small deal box about eighteen inches square, which he had placed upon the round mahogany table in the centre of the room.
This table the woman pushed towards my chair until I was seated before it. But she hardly gave me a glance.
I tried to speak, to inquire the reason of such strange proceedings, but it seemed that the drug which had been given me in that wine had produced entire muscular paralysis. I could not move, neither could I speak. My brain was on fire and swimming, yet I remained perfectly conscious, horrified to find myself so utterly and entirely helpless.
The sallow-faced man, in whose black eyes was an evil, murderous look, and upon whose thin lips there played a slight, but triumphant smile, took both my arms and laid them straight upon the table.
I tried with all my power to move them, but to no purpose. As he placed them, so they remained.
Then, for the first time, the woman spoke, and addressing me, said in a hard, harsh tone: