For a space they waited thus. Then Labar stirred and reaching over to the prisoner gripped his shoulder so that he squirmed. “Trying to put something over on us,” he said sternly. “Just one more break of that kind and I’ll find a way that will make you squeal. We’re bad men to play with just now.”

“It was an accident, guv’nor,” pleaded the man. “You must have handled it wrong.”

“Another accident like that may be fatal to you, my boy,” said Malone ferociously.

“All the same it’s funny about that door,” said Labar. “That has been closed since I was here. Let’s get on.”

Cautiously they pushed forward. They came to the place in which the man who had been shot had lain. The oil lamp still burned and the detectives cast their torches about. There was a crimson stain on the floor but otherwise no sign of a man either wounded or dead.

“What do you know about that?” demanded Moreland.