“What is the meaning of this?” asked Nyoda.  The woman made no answer.  “In whose house are we?” demanded Nyoda.  Still no reply.  “Answer me,” said Nyoda sharply.  The woman pointed to her ears and shook her head, then pointed to her lips and shook her head.  “She’s deaf and dumb!” exclaimed Nyoda.  The woman pressed a button and the elevator sank from sight.

Nyoda and Gladys faced each other in consternation.  The mystery was becoming deeper.  Beyond a doubt they were not in Mrs. Bates’s house; beyond a doubt they were the victims of some mistake; but how was the mistake to be cleared up if they could not make themselves understood?  They looked the room over thoroughly for some clew to the mystery.  They found none.  There was no door leading from the room except the one opening into the bath.  There was no door leading out from the bath, to any other room; neither was there any window.  The little room was lighted by electricity.  As in the other room, everything here was violet-colored.  The tiled walls, the floor, the calcimined ceiling, the light globe, the enameled medicine chest, the outside of the bathtub, and even a little three-legged stool, were all the same shade.  The wonder of the girls increased momentarily.

“Can this be real,” asked Nyoda, looking around her in a daze, “or are we in the middle of some nightmare?  Pinch me to see if I’m awake.”

“We’re awake, all right,” said Gladys.

“Then have we dropped back into one of the novels of Dumas?  Can this be the year 1915?  Imprisoned in a lonely tower, with no window except one over the lake, and that window barred.  How did we get here, anyway?” she asked wearily, her head spinning with the effort to make head or tail out of their position.  “Let’s see, just how was it?  We missed the Limited, telephoned Mrs. Bates, and she told us that her automobile was at the corner of ——­th Avenue and L——­ Street—­a bright blue automobile with a cane streamer—­and we should get in and the driver would come and take us out to Bates Villa.  We went down to the corner, found the automobile, got in, and the driver came and drove off and we landed here.”  Her temples throbbed as she tried to recall anything out of the way in the business.  But no light came.  The whole thing was mysterious, inexplicable, grotesque.

“Hadn’t we better eat something?” suggested Gladys gently.  “It evidently isn’t their intention to starve us, whatever they are keeping us here for.”

“You are right,” said Nyoda, and she lifted the tray down from the shelf.  The dishes and silver were of good quality, but the knives were so dull that it was impossible to cut anything with them.  After vainly trying to make an impression on a piece of meat, Gladys threw her knife aside impatiently.

“They certainly never made those knives to cut with,” she said.