She
had been deposited, then, at no great distance from the house.
He was to learn later that poor Mrs. McMurdoch, in her
artificially induced swoon, had been left in charge of a
hospitable cottager, while her solicitous Oriental escort had
sped away in quest of a physician. But at the moment matters of
even greater urgency engaged his attention.
Creeping forward to the doorway by which Rama Dass had gone out,
Nicol Brinn emerged upon a landing from which stairs both
ascended and descended. Faint sounds of footsteps below guided
him, and although from all outward seeming he appeared to saunter
casually down, his left hand was clutching the butt of a Colt
automatic.
He presently found himself in a maze of basements--kitchens of
the establishment, no doubt. The sound of footsteps no longer
guided him. He walked along, and in a smaller deserted pantry
discovered the base of a lift shaft in which some sort of small
elevator worked. He was staring at this reflectively, when, for
the second time in his adventurous career, a silken cord was
slipped tightly about his throat!
He was tripped and thrown. He fought furiously, but the fatal
knee pressure came upon his spine so shrewdly as to deprive him
of the strength to raise his hands.
"My finish!" were the words that flashed through his mind, as
sounds like the waves of a great ocean beat upon his ears and
darkness began to descend.
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