now serious again.
‘Dear, oh dear! It looks as if our friend Mr. Karloff was spinning a little story when he said the doctor and Diana left an hour ago.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s a cigarette-end in the fireplace and it obviously hasn’t been there very long, judging from appearances.’
Steve did not take the discovery quite so seriously as her companion. ‘Perhaps the butler was having a quiet little smoke!’ she remarked. ‘That would account for him keeping us waiting.’
‘It wouldn’t account for the lip rouge on the cigarette, dearie!’ said Paul Temple, ironically. ‘Unless we’ve greatly misjudged our friend.’
Steve Trent joined him in front of the fireplace and proceeded to examine the beautiful little statuettes. They were perfect specimens of workmanship. Indeed, two of them looked as if they were of solid gold and worth an immense sum of money. Suddenly Steve came to a stop before one of the statues.
‘I say, Paul—’ she started.
‘Yes?’
‘This is a funny sort of thing, isn’t it?’
‘What is it?’ asked Paul Temple quietly.
‘I don’t know,’ Steve answered. ‘Looks like a figure of something or other…’
Being gifted with an exceptionally large measure of curiosity, Steve proceeded to finger the strange little statue. Its upper half seemed separate from the remainder.
‘The top part is quite loose!’ she exclaimed as she made the discovery. ‘Look, it—’ She suddenly hesitated.
Steve had turned the statue round, idly wondering whether it could be unscrewed. As she did so, a section of the oak panelling in the wall, several feet square, began slowly and softly to slide back.
‘Paul, look!’ she shouted across at him. ‘Look!’ she repeated.
Paul Temple came to her side and together they stared at this extraordinary discovery. Behind the panel all was intense darkness. Steve, full of excitement, returned to have another look at the little statue.
‘No, don’t touch the statue, Steve!’ Temple admonished her. He felt in his pockets, and extracted a flat pocket electric torch. ‘We must have a look at this!’ he said softly.
He switched the torch on and flashed the light through the aperture. It was not big enough for both of them to look through, together, and Steve found it hard to restrain her impatience.
‘Can you see anything?’ she asked at last.
Paul Temple withdrew his arms and head and looked into her anxious eyes.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s just a small room – nothing exciting about it. It’s not even furnished.’
‘Oh,’ said Steve, feeling a trifle disappointed.
‘Let’s have a look inside!’ he said, however. He managed to push back the panel a few inches and started climbing inside. The opening was now just big enough for a man to work his way through. The bottom of the opening was some two feet from the floor. Slowly and carefully, Paul Temple began to clamber through, watching for anything that might happen. Soon he was inside. Then he stretched out his arm to help Steve into the little room.
‘Come on, Steve!’ he encouraged her. ‘Can you get in all right?’
‘Yes!’ she replied, as she placed one foot on the other side of the panel, unconsciously revealing as she did so a length of perfectly shaped leg. Then she bent down and was soon inside the mysterious little room.
‘Not very impressive, is it?’ commented Paul Temple.
‘It doesn’t seem to be used at all as far as I can see,’ she replied. Nevertheless, there was very little dust on the floor. Both stood looking round, equally mystified.
‘Isn’t there a light?’ asked Steve.
‘Yes, but I’m blowed if I can see the switch,’ was the answer. Set in the middle of the ceiling was an opal glass bowl which betokened an electric light. Yet neither of them had noticed any sign of a switch which would work it.
‘Close the panel, Steve,’ Paul Temple hazarded. ‘I have an idea that might work it.’
She pulled the panel. Immediately the little chamber was flooded with light from the bowl above. They could now see their immediate surroundings better, but found there was still nothing extraordinary about them.
‘I thought it would,’ he said. ‘I could see the small notch in the corner of—’
He broke off as a strange noise came to their ears.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
They listened intently. It was the sound of machinery. It might have been the whir of a dynamo or some electric motor. It seemed to come from somewhere close at hand.
‘It sounds like—’ Steve Trent started; then she broke off. She had been feeling the panel, trying to push it back.
‘Paul!’ she exclaimed in sudden alarm. ‘Paul! The panel won’t open!’
‘Won’t open!’ he repeated, gently pushing her aside. ‘Here, let me try.’ He struggled hard, but it refused to yield.
‘By Timothy!’ he said. ‘We’re locked in!’
They looked round in helpless amazement at their tiny prison.
They pushed at the sides of the chamber, but without avail. Their desperate search for some hidden button or switch that might put an end to their imprisonment met with immediate failure.
‘Listen!’ exclaimed Temple suddenly.
The hum of the machinery had gradually been growing louder. Now it seemed to fill the little room. An instant later, the floor started to tremble.
‘Paul!’ exclaimed Steve with immense trepidation, ‘Paul! We’re moving!’
‘Moving?’
‘It’s the room – can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel it?’
The hum of the machinery had swollen till now it reverberated in their ears. The entire room was shaking.
Paul Temple paused. Then in sudden astonishment, he realized what was happening. ‘By Timothy, Steve – we’re in a lift!’
‘A lift!’ she repeated.
‘Keep still!’ he instructed.
The two stood watching each other, powerless to do anything.
Slowly, they realized that they were descending, that they were being carried into the depths of the earth. Steve stared at Temple with an expression of bewildered astonishment.
‘Paul!’
