Corbett appeared and took me downstairs where the cells were, in a moldy, damp, dark half basement. He was a powerful man, not tall, but thick and broad. He was black-browed, brutal-faced, heavy-jawed. He opened a cell door and I started to step in but he detained me. I sensed something wrong. His brownish-red eyes gleamed like a fanatic’s. “You’d better tell me all about that robbery, young man.” His voice was cold, level, and passionless.

“I know nothing about it, sir,” I answered very decently; I was afraid. Like a flash one of his hands went to my throat. He pinned me to the wall, choking me, and brought something down on my head with the other hand that turned everything yellow and made my knees weaken. Still holding me by the throat he lifted me clear of the floor and threw me into the cell like a bundle of rags. There was about a half inch of water on the cell floor. I lay there in it, and looked about me by the dim light of a gas jet out in the corridor. There was nothing in the cell but a wooden bench.