As Kathleen was pushed into the room by her captor, a hum of subdued conversation ended abruptly, and she was the focus of nine pairs of passionless eyes that looked at her unsmilingly. When she had heard the voices, when she took her first swift glance at the room, and had seen the type of face that met hers, she had steeled herself for an outburst of coarse amusement. She feared--she did not know what she feared. Strangely enough, the dead silence that greeted her gave her courage, the cold stare of the men nerved her. Only one of the men lost his composure. The tall, heavy-looking man who sat at one end of the room with bowed, attentive head listening to a little clean-shaven man with side-whiskers, who looked for all the world like an old-fashioned jockey, started with a muttered oath. “Upstairs!” he roared, and said something rapidly in a foreign tongue that sent the man who held the girl’s arm staggering back with a blanched face. “I--I,” he stammered appealingly, “I didn’t understand.” The tall man, his face flushed with rage, pointed to the door, and hastily opening the door, her captor half dragged the bewildered girl to the darkness of the landing. “This way,” he muttered, and she could feel his hand trembling as he stumbled up yet another flight of stairs, never once relinquishing his hold of her. “Don’t you scream nor nothing, or you’ll get into trouble. You see what happened to me for takin’ you into the wrong room. Oh, he’s a devil is Connor--Smith, I mean. Smith’s his name, d’ye hear?” He shook her arm roughly. Evidently the man was beside himself with terror. What dreadful thing the tall man had said, Kathleen could only judge. She herself was half dead with fright. The sinister faces of these men, the mystery of this assembly in the shuttered room, her abduction, all combined to add terror to her position. Her conductor unlocked a door and pushed her in. This had evidently been prepared for her reception, for a table had been laid, and food and drink stood ready. The door was closed behind her, and a bolt was slipped. Like the chamber below, all daylight was kept out by a curtain. Her first thoughts were of escape. She waited till the footsteps on the rickety stairs had died away, then crossed the room swiftly. The drop from the window could not be very far; she would risk it. She drew aside the curtain. Where the window should have been was a sheet of steel plate. It was screwed to the joists. Somebody had anticipated her resolve to escape by the window. In chalk, written in an illiterate hand, was the sentence:-- “You wont be hert if your senserble. We want to know some questions then well let you go. Dont make a fuss or it will be bad for you. Keep quite and tell us these questions and well let you go.”