The two men turned away.  Brencherly coughed.  “Is there any hope?” he asked, breaking the tense silence that seemed suddenly to have entered the room like an actual presence.

The doctor nodded without speaking.  “Yes—­hope,” he said at length, as he opened his leather satchel.

* * * * *

XIII

It was well into the small hours of the morning when Brencherly sought his own rooms in an inconspicuous apartment hotel, where he, his activities and, at times, strange companions, were not only tolerated, but welcomed.  He was weary, but too excited and elated to desire sleep.  He nodded to the friendly night clerk, and received a favorable response to his request, even at that unwholesome hour, for coffee and scrambled eggs to be served in his rooms.

He found Long, his assistant, slumbering sonorously in an armchair in the living-room of his modest suite.  The open door to the chamber beyond, sufficiently indicated where his charge had been placed.

Long awoke, and stretched himself with a yawn.

“Three o’clock,” he observed, with a glance at the mantel clock.  “Made a good haul, hey?  Well, your kidnapped beauty is in there, dead to the world.  I tied her feet together before I went to sleep.  You can’t tell when they’re going to come to, you know, and I thought it would be safer.  Now, tell a feller, what’s the dope?”

Brencherly entered the adjoining apartment without deigning an answer, switched on the lights and approached the bed.  The wizen little woman, with her disheveled white hair and tumbled garments looked pitifully weak and helpless; her thin, claw-like hands clutching at the pillow in a childish pose.  Her captor stared at her intently, his brain crowded with strange thoughts.  Who was she?  What was her history?  He had his suspicions, but they all remained to be verified.

He took one of the emaciated wrists in his hand.  How frail and small it was, and yet, perhaps, an instrument in the hands of Fate.  She moved uneasily, and, glancing down, he noticed how securely she was bound.  Leaning over, he loosened the curtain cord with which she had been secured.  She sighed as if relieved, and, turning, he left her, as a discreet tapping at his door announced the coming of the meal he had ordered.

A night watchman in shirt sleeves brought in the tray softly and set it upon the table, with a glance of curiosity at the adjoining room.  There was usually an interesting story to be gleaned from the guests that the detective brought.

“Come on,” said the host eagerly, “fall on it, I’m starved.”

“Anything I can do?” inquired the night watchman hopefully.

But Brencherly was still uncommunicative.  “Nope, thanks.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.  Good-night—­or good-morning.  Tell ’em down stairs I’m much obliged, as usual.”