Locke held the key as firmly as he might between his toes and, projecting his body by a muscular effort far away from the wall, he managed to insert the key in the lock.  He turned it.  The door was unlocked now.  A swift downward movement of his foot against the knob and the door swung open.

He braced himself against its edge and, with his back firmly pressed against the wall, relieved the strain on his thumbs.  He rested a moment and then, as it were, walked up the edge of the door until his feet reached the top.  Swinging one leg over the door, by patient effort he was enabled to release one swollen thumb, then the other.  An instant later he dropped down and leaned exhaustedly against the wall.

While Locke was held in the room things had happened which would have set him nearly crazy with anxiety.  Eva, having heard nothing from him, had become alarmed and had telephoned to the chemist.  This was at quarter to five, and she had supposed that it was the chemist who answered her.  In reality it had been an emissary, and he had told her that the final experiment to find an antidote for her father’s malady had been really a failure and that Locke had left some time before.

After all that she had endured, this was almost the final blow to Eva.  She thought of Flint and Baker’s dock and five o’clock.  There was no time to lose if she were to save her father.  So she pulled herself together, seized her hat and cloak, and started for the door.

Here Zita stopped her and offered to accompany her, but she declined.  She hastily asked the direction of Baker’s dock from the butler, and then ran out of the house and sprang to the steering-wheel of her waiting car.  With a whir of the starter she was away.

Flint had arrived at the dock long before and was now slinking in and out among the crates and boxes as he sought diligently for a safe hiding-place.  But his nerves, none too strong at the best, were now running riot, and nowhere could he feel a sense of security so that he could remain quiet.

It was while he was sneaking from one pile of bales to another that an emissary hailed him.

“Are you Flint?” he demanded.

“Y-e-s,” came quaveringly from Flint.

“Well, there’s a lady in the office asking for you.”

Such was the fascination of any of the emissaries of the Automaton over Flint by this time that he followed the man without question, particularly as he felt that he would be spared, since the lady in the office could be none other than Eva.

Together they walked toward the entrance and, with an order to wait, the emissary halted Flint close to a pile of crates and left him.  Flint dared not move.  A premonition of impending disaster must have come over him, for his knees shook and a clammy sweat broke out on his forehead.

Without sound a gigantic iron hand and arm protruded from behind a crate and, for a moment, hung suspended over Flint’s head.  Then, with a swift encircling movement, that hooklike arm wrapped itself around Flint’s neck and drew him into the shadow.  The mighty form drew the victim close—­and it was over.