bricks; every sort of worthless lumber.

And so, without accident, without incident, without hearing a sound but
the faint noise of his own movements, Max got back to the point where he
had started.

Then he paused and listened at the inner door.

In spite of everything, he refused to yield to the suggestion that
Carrie had anything to do with his incarceration. Would she not, on
finding that he had disappeared, make an effort to get him out?

While he was standing between doubt and hope, on the alert for any sound
on the other side which should suggest the presence of the girl herself
and give him the cue to knock at the door again, his attention was
attracted by a slight noise which thrilled him to the marrow; for it
came, not from outside, but from some part of the room itself, in which
he had supposed himself to be alone with the dead body of a man.

Instantly he put his back to the door and prepared to stand on the
defensive against the expected attack of an invisible assailant.

That was the awful part of it, that he could not see. For a moment he
thought of creeping back to the rubbish heap in the corner and trying to
find, amongst the odds and ends lying there, some sort of weapon of
defense. But a moment's reflection told him that the act of stooping, of
searching, would put him more at the mercy of an assailant than ever.
There was absolutely nothing to do but to wait and to listen.

And the noise he heard was like the drawing of a log of wood slowly