“Didn’t you wonder why the door was locked?” he asked.

“Lor’,” answered Dunn, “if you stopped to wonder about everything you find rummy in a crib you’re cracking, when would you ever get your business done?”

“So you didn’t look—­in that packing-case?” Deede Dawson repeated.

“If I had,” answered Dunn ruefully, “I shouldn’t be here, copped like this.  I should have shoved with the stuff and not waited for nothing more.  But I never had no luck.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Deede Dawson grimly, and as he spoke a soft voice called down from upstairs.

“Is there any one there?” it said.  “Oh, please, is any one there?”

“Is that you, Ella?” Deede Dawson called back.  “Come down here.”

“I can’t,” she answered.  “I’m fastened to a chair.”

“I didn’t hurt the young lady,” Dunn interposed quickly.  “I only tied her up as gentle as I could to a chair so as to stop her from interfering.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Deede Dawson, and seemed a little amused, as though the thought of his stepdaughter’s plight pleased him rather than not.  “Well, if she can’t come down here, we’ll go up there.  Turn round, my man, and go up the stairs and keep your hands over your head all the time.  I shan’t hesitate to shoot if you don’t, and I never miss.”

Dunn was not inclined to value his life at a very high price as he turned and went awkwardly up the stairs, still holding his hands above his head.

But he meant to save it if he could, for many things depended on it, among them due punishment to be exacted for the crime he had discovered this night; and also, perhaps, for the humiliation he was now enduring.

CHAPTER VIII

CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE

Up the stairs, across the landing, and down the passage opposite Dunn went in silence, shepherded by the little man behind whose pistol was still levelled and still steady.

His hands held high in the air, he pushed open with his knee the door of the girl’s room and entered, and she looked up as he did so with an expression of pure astonishment at his attitude of upheld hands that changed to one of comprehension and of faint amusement as Deede Dawson followed, revolver in hand.

“Oh,” she murmured.  “Captivity captive, it seems.”

At the fireplace Dunn turned and found her looking at him very intently, while from the doorway Deede Dawson surveyed them both, for once his eyes appearing to share in the smile that played about his lips as though he found much satisfaction in what he saw.

“Well, Ella,” he said.  “You’ve been having adventures, it seems, but you don’t look too comfortable like that.”

“Nor do I feel it,” she retorted.  “So please set me free.”

“Yes, so I will,” he answered, but he still hesitated, and Dunn had the idea that he was pleased to see the girl like this, and would leave her so if he could, and that he was wondering now if he could turn her predicament to his own advantage in any way.