I am James
Macdougal, Mr. Sanford Quest, and I have got the Ashleigh diamonds, and I
have settled an old grudge, if not of my own, of one greater than you.
That's all. A pleasant night to you!"
The door went down with a bang. Faintly, as though, indeed, the footsteps
belonged to some other world, Sanford Quest heard the two leave the house.
Then silence.
"A perfect oubliette," he remarked to himself, as he held a match over his
head a moment or two later, "built for the purpose. It must be the house
we failed to find which Bill Taylor used to keep before he was shot.
Smooth brick walls, smooth brick floor, only exit twelve feet above one's
head. Human means, apparently, are useless. Science, you have been my
mistress all my days. You must save my life now or lose an earnest
disciple."
He felt in his overcoat pocket and drew out the small, hard pellet. He
gripped it in his fingers, stood as nearly as possible underneath the spot
from which he had been projected, coolly swung his arm back, and flung the
black pebble against the sliding door. The explosion which followed shook
the very ground under his feet. The walls cracked about him. Blue fire
seemed to be playing around the blackness. He jumped on one side, barely
in time to escape a shower of bricks. For minutes afterwards everything
around him seemed to rock. He struck another match. The whole of the roof
of the place was gone. By building a few bricks together, he was easily
able to climb high enough to swing himself on to the fragments of the
hallway.
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