“I wish we could reach his apartments ahead of him.”

“So you can by going up in the elevator.  It’s on the top floor.”

“Well try it.”

They hastened over to the elevators and found that the only one down was one which had no conductor in it.  As they did not wish to lose time, they both got in, shut the door and pulled the wire cable.

Up they glided, story after story, without seeing him ascending the stairs.

He had gone up in an elevator from the floor above.

Above on the beams over the elevator shaft La Croix was crouching with a big hatchet in his hand, as he peered down at the people ascending in the cars.

He had detected them in pursuit and expecting trouble, he was waiting to give the detectives a warm reception.  He evidently recognized them without their disguises.

As he caught view of his pursuers coming up in the car, he picked up the hatchet he had found lying on the beam.

Raising it above his head, he brought it down upon the cable by which the car was suspended, with all his strength.

The shock caused the Bradys to look up and they saw what he was doing.

Bang! went the keen blade upon the cable again where it crossed the wheel.

The weight of the car caused the wire rope to part where he cut it, and the elevator’s ascent was checked.

It began to fall with the detectives in it.

CHAPTER IV.

The clew in the basin.

A cry of alarm escaped Old King Brady when he saw the Frenchman.

“Harry,” he gasped, “he is trying to kill us.”

“There goes the cable!” muttered the boy, and a cold chill darted through him as he heard the ominous snap of the parting strands.

“The safety-clutch may save us, Harry.”

“No!  It don’t work,” groaned the boy as the car shot down.

A sickening sensation passed through the pair as the falling car went plunging down at lightning speed.

They expected to get dashed to death at the bottom as they went flying down past the different floors, and heard a fiendish chuckle from the Frenchman above their heads.

Like rats in a trap, the two detectives were held so they could do nothing to aid themselves.

All they could do was to wait for the final crash, and visions of the wrecked car and their bodies crushed to a pulp flashed across their minds.

The desperation of their situation was appalling.

The speed of their fall took their breath away and both instinctively grasped the sides of the car and clung to it tenaciously.

Down three stories they plunged.

Then there suddenly sounded a sharp “click.”

The car paused, slid a few feet, then came to a sudden stop.

At the last moment the clutches flew out and tightened on the pilot rods, holding the falling car in midair.