"Not the great Sanford Quest? This surely cannot be the greatest detective
in the world walking so easily into the spider's web!"

"Any chance of getting out?" Quest asked laconically.

"None!" was the bitter reply. "You've done enough mischief. You're there
to rot!"

"Why this animus against me, my friend Macdougal?" Quest demanded. "You
and I have never come up against one another before. I didn't like the
life you led in New York ten years ago, or your friends, but you've
suffered nothing through me."

"If I let you go," once more came the man's voice, "I know very well in
what chair I shall be sitting before a month has passed. I am James
Macdougal, Mr. Sanford Quest, and I have got the Ashleigh diamonds, and I
have settled an old grudge, if not of my own, of one greater than you.
That's all. A pleasant night to you!"

The door went down with a bang. Faintly, as though, indeed, the footsteps
belonged to some other world, Sanford Quest heard the two leave the house.
Then silence.

"A perfect oubliette," he remarked to himself, as he held a match over his
head a moment or two later, "built for the purpose. It must be the house
we failed to find which Bill Taylor used to keep before he was shot.
Smooth brick walls, smooth brick floor, only exit twelve feet above one's
head. Human means, apparently, are useless. Science, you have been my
mistress all my days. You must save my life now or lose an earnest