Night attire was provided in the sleeping chamber, but he did not avail himself of this hospitality.  Absolute silence reigned about him.  Yet so immutable are Nature’s laws, that presently Paul Harley sank back upon the mattresses, and fell asleep.

He awoke, acutely uncomfortable and ill-rested.  He found a shaft of light streaming into the room, and casting shadows of the iron bars upon the opposite wall.  The brass lantern still burned above him, and the silence remained complete as when he had fallen asleep.  He stood up yawning and stretching himself.

At least, it was good to be still alive.  He was vaguely conscious of the fact that he had been dreaming of Phil Abingdon, and suppressing a sigh, he clenched his teeth grimly and entered the little bathroom.  There proved to be a plentiful supply of hot and cold water.  At this he sniffed suspiciously, but at last: 

“I’ll risk it,” he muttered.

He undressed and revelled in the joy of a hot bath, concluding with a cold plunge.  A razor and excellent toilet requisites were set upon the dressing table, and whilst his imagination whispered that the soap might be poisoned and the razor possess a septic blade, he shaved, and having shaved, lighted his pipe and redressed himself at leisure.

He had nearly completed his toilet when a slight sound in the outer room arrested his attention.  He turned sharply, stepping through the doorway.

A low carved table, the only one which the apartment boasted, displayed an excellent English breakfast laid upon a spotless cover.

“Ah,” he murmured, and by the sight was mentally translated to that celebrated apartment of the palace at Versailles, where Louis XIV and his notorious favourite once were accustomed to dine, alone, and unsuitably dressed, the courses being served in just this fashion.

Harley held his pipe in his hand, and contemplated the repast.  It was only logical to suppose it to be innocuous, and a keen appetite hastened the issue.  He sidetracked his suspicion, and made an excellent breakfast.  So the first day of his captivity began.

Growing used to the stillness about him, he presently began to detect, as the hours wore on, distant familiar sounds.  Automobiles on the highroad, trains leaving and entering a tunnel which he judged to be from two to three miles distant; even human voices at long intervals.

The noises of an English countryside crept through the barred windows.  Beyond a doubt he was in the house known as Hillside.  Probably at night the lights of London could be seen from the garden.  He was within ordinary telephone call of Chancery Lane.  Yet he resumed his pipe and smiled philosophically.  He had hoped to see the table disappear beneath the floor.  As evidence that he was constantly watched, this had occurred during a brief visit which he had made to the bedroom in quest of matches.

When he returned the table was in its former place, but the cover had been removed.  He carefully examined the floor beneath it, and realized that there was no hope of depressing the trap from above.  Then, at an hour which he judged to be that of noon, the same voice addressed him from beyond the gilded screen.