But as yet things were in a lull--and it was during this pause, brief, critical, that Martinez expected her to act. That much she had grasped from his hurried words. She reached his office and halted to listen. No gleam came from the building, nor from the low structure on either side, and across the way all was dark--dark as it had been that night when the assassin's shot had been fired at Steele Weir. Repressing a shudder, she bade the Mexican girl follow her, groped for the door knob, found it and pushed the door open. Martinez had spoken of men forcing an entrance, so it must have been at the rear. Inside all was pitchy black. "Juanita, you have a match in your pocket, haven't you?" she demanded, anxiously. "Yes, Miss Janet." "Strike it, then." In the pent stillness of the dark office Janet could hear the Mexican girl fumbling in the pocket of her gingham dress. There came a scratching sound and a tiny flame. "Be careful of it," she warned. "Now give it to me. And close the door." Janet lighted the smoky lamp resting on the table, next took it up in her hand. A few papers had fallen upon the floor. The room was still strong with fresh cigarette smoke. Martinez could not have been gone more than five minutes. And in another five minutes' time too Martinez' captors might be back again! Holding the lamp aloft she peered about for an old chair, her heart beating rapidly, her lips compressed. But all the chairs, the three or four in the room, were old. Her eyes encountered the Mexican girl staring open-mouthed and scared. "Take the lamp and keep by me," Janet ordered. "Don't upset it. What are you shaking for, you ninny?" "I can't help it--and you're so white," the other whimpered. "Never you mind me; do as I say." Janet swiftly went from one chair to another, turning them about, upside down, all ways. No paper was hidden in or under any one of them, or indeed was there space capable of holding a document. At last she gave up, gazing about in dismay, dread, tears of vexation and anxiety almost rising to her lids. Only one conclusion was to be drawn: the men who had seized the lawyer had found the paper in spite of his precaution. She examined the chairs a second time feverishly, for time was flying. "I can't find it, Juanita, the paper he telephoned me to come and get," she exclaimed. "Maybe it's in there where he sleeps." And the Mexican girl pointed at the inner door standing barely ajar. "We'll see." Janet led the way within. There was Martinez' living- and sleeping-room. The furnishings comprised a bed, an old scratched bureau, a stand with wash-bowl, a red and black Navajo blanket on the floor, a trunk, a stool and a dilapidated stuffed chair--just such a chair as a paper could be hidden in. That into this room the lawyer's assailants had burst their way was apparent from the splintered door hanging from one hinge at the rear. Beckoning Juanita to bring the lamp, Janet ran to the arm-chair.