‘No,’ she answered. ‘I shall shoot.’ She pressed her lips together. ‘I shall shoot,’ he repeated. ‘One--two--three.’ Bang, bang! He had fired twice, purposely missing her. Miss Spencer never blenched. Racksole was tremendously surprised--and he would have been a thousandfold more surprised could he have contrasted her behaviour now with her abject terror on the previous evening when Nella had threatened her. ‘You’ve got a bit of pluck,’ he said, ‘but it won’t help you. Why won’t you let us pass?’ As a matter of fact, pluck was just what she had not, really; she had merely subordinated one terror to another. She was desperately afraid of Racksole’s revolver, but she was much more afraid of something else. ‘Why won’t you let us pass?’ ‘I daren’t,’ she said, with a plaintive tremor; ‘Tom put me in charge.’ That was all. The men could see tears running down her poor wrinkled face. Theodore Racksole began to take off his light overcoat. ‘I see I must take my coat off to you,’ he said, and he almost smiled. Then, with a quick movement, he threw the coat over Miss Spencer’s head and flew at her, seizing both her arms, while Prince Aribert assisted. Her struggles ceased--she was beaten. ‘That’s all right,’ said Racksole: ‘I could never have used that revolver--to mean business with it, of course.’ They carried her, unresisting, upstairs and on to the upper floor, where they locked her in a bedroom. She lay in the bed as if exhausted. ‘Now for my poor Eugen,’ said Prince Aribert. ‘Don’t you think we’d better search the house first?’ Racksole suggested; ‘it will be safer to know just how we stand. We can’t afford any ambushes or things of that kind, you know.’ The Prince agreed, and they searched the house from top to bottom, but found no one. Then, having locked the front door and the french window of the sitting-room, they proceeded again to the cellar. Here a new obstacle confronted them. The cellar door was, of course, locked; there was no sign of a key, and it appeared to be a heavy door. They were compelled to return to the bedroom where Miss Spencer was incarcerated, in order to demand the key of the cellar from her. She still lay without movement on the bed. ‘Tom’s got it,’ she replied, faintly, to their question: ‘Tom’s got it, I swear to you. He took it for safety.’ ‘Then how do you feed your prisoner?’ Racksole asked sharply. ‘Through the grating,’ she answered. Both men shuddered. They felt she was speaking the truth. For the third time they went to the cellar door. In vain Racksole thrust himself against it; he could do no more than shake it. ‘Let’s try both together,’ said Prince Aribert. ‘Now!’ There was a crack. ‘Again,’ said Prince Aribert. There was another crack, and then the upper hinge gave way. The rest was easy. Over the wreck of the door they entered Prince Eugen’s prison.