The light was suddenly switched on, a light so venomous, says Mr. Trevor, that they had to blink furiously. And that must have been a very large room, for they could not see into its far corners. The light came from what must have been a very high-powered lamp directly above a table in the middle of the room; and it was concentrated by a shade in such a way as to fall, like a search-light, exactly on the two helpless gentlemen. Mr. Trevor says that Beau Maturin’s handsome face looked white and ghastly, so the Lord knows what Mr. Trevor’s must have looked like. Meanwhile their captor leapt from her station behind them, and they were privileged to see her for the first time. She was, says Mr. Trevor, exactly as Miss Samsonoff had described her, grey and gaunt and dry, and her expression was strangely contemptuous and evil as sin. And never for a moment did she change the direction of her revolvers, which was towards our gentlemen’s hearts. Mr. Trevor says he cannot remember when he saw a woman look less afraid that a revolver might go off in her hand. “Look down,” she commanded. “It’s all right,” said Beau Maturin peaceably; “we’ve already guessed what they are. Corpses. Nice cold night for them, too. Keep for days in weather like this.” Mr. Trevor could not resist looking down to his feet. The corpses were of two youngish men in dress-clothes. “They’re cut badly,” said Mr. Maturin. “They’re not cut at all,” said the woman harshly. “I shot these two for a change.” “I meant their clothes,” Mr. Maturin explained. “Death was too good for them with dress-clothes like that.” “Well, I can’t stop here all night talking about clothes,” snapped the woman. “Now then, to business. These bodies have to be buried in the back-garden. You will each take one. There are spades just behind you. I shall not have the slightest hesitation in killing you as I have killed these two, but it will be more convenient for me if you do as you are told. I may kill you later, and I may not. Now be quick!” “Lord, what’s that!” cried Mr. Trevor sharply. He had that moment realised a strange muffled, ticking noise which must, he thought, come either from somewhere in the room or from a room nearby. And, while he was never in his life less conscious of feeling fear, he could not help but be startled by that ticking noise, for he had heard it before, when timing a dynamite-bomb. “That is why,” the woman explained with what, Mr. Trevor supposed, was meant to be a smile, “you will be safer in the garden. Women are but weak creatures, and so I take the precaution of having a rather large size in dynamite-bombs so timed that I have but to press a button to send us all to blazes. It will not be comfortable for the police when, if ever, they catch me. But pick up those spades and get busy.”