"Well, that is certainly the contrivance of a lazy man," laughed the expert. "Seated in his chair here, he can close his door at will. No shouting after a deaf servant, no awkward stumbling over rugs to shut it himself. I don't know but I approve of this contrivance, only----" here he caught a rather serious expression on Mr. Gryce's face--"the slide seems to be of a somewhat curious construction. It is not made of wood, as any sensible door ought to be, but of----" "Steel," finished Mr. Gryce in an odd tone. "This is the strangest thing yet. It begins to look as if Mr. Adams was daft on electrical contrivances." "And as if we were prisoners here," supplemented the other. "I do not see any means for drawing this slide back." "Oh, there's another button for that, of course," Mr. Gryce carelessly remarked. But they failed to find one. "If you don't object," observed Mr. Gryce, after five minutes of useless search, "I will turn a more cheerful light upon the scene. Yellow does not seem to fit the occasion." "Give us rose, for unless you have some one on the other side of this steel plate, we seem likely to remain here till morning." "There is a man upstairs whom we may perhaps make hear, but what does this contrivance portend? It has a serious look to me, when you consider that every window in these two rooms has been built up almost under the roof." "Yes; a very strange look. But before engaging in its consideration I should like a breath of fresh air. I cannot do anything while in confinement. My brain won't work." Meanwhile Mr. Gryce was engaged in examining the huge plate of steel which served as a barrier to their egress. He found that it had been made--certainly at great expense--to fit the curve of the walls through which it passed. This was a discovery of some consequence, causing Mr. Gryce to grow still more thoughtful and to eye the smooth steel plate under his hand with an air of marked distrust. "Mr. Adams carried his taste for the mechanical to great extremes," he remarked to the slightly uneasy man beside him. "This slide is very carefully fitted, and, if I am not mistaken, it will stand some battering before we are released." "I wish that his interest in electricity had led him to attach such a simple thing as a bell." "True, we have come across no bell." "It would have smacked too much of the ordinary to please him." "Besides, his only servant was deaf." "Try the effect of a blow, a quick blow with this silver-mounted alpenstock. Some one should hear and come to our assistance." "I will try my whistle first; it will be better understood." But though Mr. Gryce both whistled and struck many a resounding knock upon the barrier before them, it was an hour before he could draw the attention of Styles, and five hours before an opening could be effected in the wall large enough to admit of their escape, so firmly was this barrier of steel fixed across the sole outlet from this remarkable room. CHAPTER V.