“He may simply have cut the cord of the counterbalance and blocked the whole apparatus.”

“Why should he? He does not know that we are coming this way!”

“I dare say he suspects it, for he knows that I understand the system.”

“It’s not turning!⁠ ⁠… And Christine, sir, Christine?”

The Persian said coldly:

“We shall do all that it is humanly possible to do!⁠ ⁠… But he may stop us at the first step!⁠ ⁠… He commands the walls, the doors and the trapdoors. In my country, he was known by a name which means the ‘trapdoor lover.’ ”

“But why do these walls obey him alone? He did not build them!”

“Yes, sir, that is just what he did!”