I stood appalled at the sight of that gruesome evidence of a crime. I was not familiar with such revolting sights, as were my companions.
How, I wondered, had Eric been struck down? What motive had Sybil’s friend in reporting that he was alive and in Paris, when he was not?
Pickering, in the meanwhile, made a tour of the room. From a chair that had recently been broken he concluded that the person attacked had defended himself with it desperately, while there was a great rent in one of the dirty lace curtains that hung at the window, and it was slightly blood-stained, as though it had got caught in the struggle.
The last room we examined, which lay at the rear of the house, presented another peculiar feature, inasmuch as it was entirely bare save a table, a chair and a meagre bed, and it showed signs of rather recent occupation. Beside the grate was a cooking-pot, while on the table a dirty plate, a jug and a knife showed that its occupant had cooked his own food.
Pickering made a tour of the place, throwing the light of his lantern into every corner, examining the plate and taking up some articles of man’s clothing that lay in confusion upon the bed. Then suddenly he stopped, exclaiming,—
“Why, somebody’s been kept a prisoner here! Look at the bars before the window, and see, the door is covered with sheet-iron and strengthened. The bolts, too, show that whoever was put in here couldn’t escape. This place is a prison, that’s evident,” and taking up a piece of hard, stale bread from the table he added, “and this is the remains of the prisoner’s last meal. Where is he now, I wonder?”
“Down below,” suggested the detective Edwards.
“I fear so,” the inspector said, and taking me to the window showed me how it only looked out upon the roof of the next house and in such a position that the shouts of anyone confined there would never be heard.
“They probably kept their victims here to extort money, and then when they had drained them dry they gave them their liberty. They went downstairs,” he added grimly, “but they never gained the street.”