I
racked my brains. The stairs! But the man Schwartzmann was guarding them
with his revolver. I couldn't imagine what she meant; and then suddenly
I knew.
Throughout the entire scene, whenever I had glanced at her, I had
noticed the steady way in which her look met mine and then turned aside.
It had seemed almost like a signal or a message she was trying to give
me. And which way had her eyes always gone? Why, down the hall!
I looked in that direction and felt my heart leap up exultantly. Perhaps
twenty feet from us, just where the radius of the candle-light merged
off into the darkness, I glimpsed what seemed the merest ghost of a
circular stone staircase, carved and sculptured cunningly, like lacy
foam. Up into the dusk it wound, to the gallery, and to a door. Behold
our objective! I wasted no precious time in pondering the whys and the
wherefores. At any rate, once inside with the bolts shot we could count
on a breathing-space.
I cast a final glance at Blenheim where he lolled across the table, and
at the shadowy menacing figure of the armed sentinel on the stairs.
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