"Get her away--aside--anywhere--for a minute!" he muttered. "Let's see what condition he's in, anyway. The other--was blown to pieces." Lord Ellersdeane took a firm grip of Betty's arm and turned her round. "That was not--Mr. Neale?" he asked. "No!" she said faintly. "No!" "Then leave them to deal with that, and let us look elsewhere," he said. "Come--after all, you don't know that he would be here." "Where else should he be?" she answered. "I'm sure he's here, somewhere. Help me!" She turned away with him in another direction, and the two detectives, with some of the firemen helping them, got to work on the place which she had pointed out. Presently Polke directed the light of a bulls'-eye on the dead face beneath them. He broke into an exclamation of amazement. "Who's this?" he demanded. "Look!" One of the firemen bent closer, and suddenly glanced up at the superintendent. "It's young Chestermarke, sir," he said. "He must have shaved his beard off. But--it's him!" They took out what was to be found of Joseph Chestermarke at that particular spot, and went on to search for the rest of him, and for anything else. And eventually they came across Neale--unconscious, but alive. His partial protection by the projecting iron walls of the furnace had saved him; he had evidently been carried back with them when the explosion occurred and wedged between them and the outer wall of the laboratory. He came round to find a doctor administering restoratives to him on one side, and Betty Fosdyke kneeling at the other. And suddenly he remembered, and made a great shift to speak. "All right!" he muttered at length. "Bit knocked out, that's all! But--Horbury! Horbury's--somewhere! Get at him!" They got at the missing bank manager at last--he, too, had been saved by the thick wall which stood between him and the explosion. He was alive and conscious when they had dug down to him--and his rescuers stared from him to each other when they saw that the broken links of a steel chain were still securely manacled about his waist. CHAPTER XXXI THE PRISONER SPEAKS It was not until a week later that Neale, with a bandaged head and one arm in a sling, and Betty Fosdyke, inexpressibly thankful that the recent terrible catastrophe had at any rate brought relief in its train, were allowed to visit Horbury for their first interview of more than a few minutes' duration. Neale had made a quick recovery; beyond the fracture of a small bone in his arm, some cuts on his head, and a general shock to his system, he was little the worse for his experience. But the elder victim had suffered more severely; he had suffered, too, from a week's ill-treatment and starvation. Nevertheless, he managed an approving smile when the two young people were brought to his bedside, and he looked at them afterwards in a narrow and scrutinizing fashion, which made Betty redden and grow somewhat conscious.