The girl gasped again, and impulsively knelt also, trying with nerveless fingers to unfasten the cruel pin which sealed the man's lips. He still lived, for they heard him breathing and saw the gleaming eye: but even as they looked the face grew black: the eye opened and closed convulsively. Deborah set down the lamp and tried to raise the head. She could not lift it from the floor. Then the bound feet swung in the air and fell again with a dull thud. The eye remained wide open, staring in a glassy, manner: the breathing had stopped: and the body was motionless. "He's dead," said Deborah, leaping to her feet and catching away the girl. "Help! Help!" Her loud voice rang fiercely through the empty shop and echoed round and round. But there came no answering cry. Not a sound could be heard in the street. On the bare floor was the lamp shining on that dreadful sight: the body with sealed lips, and the glittering jewel, and leaning against the wall were the two women, Deborah staring at her dead master, but with Sylvia's eyes pressed against her bosom so that she might not witness the horror. And the stillness deepened weirdly every moment. Sylvia tried to move her head, but Deborah pressed it closer to her breast. "Don't, my pretty--don't," she whispered harshly. "I must--I--ah!" the girl freed her head from those kind arms with a wrench, and looked at the gruesome sight. She staggered forward a few steps, and then fell back. Deborah received her in her arms, and, thankful that Sylvia had fainted, carried her up the stairs to lay the unconscious girl on her own bed. Then she descended rapidly, locked the door leading from the shop to the stairs, and again looked at the body. The time she had been away was about seven or eight minutes, and the body still remained with the one open eye staring meaninglessly at the ceiling. Deborah, drawn by fascination like a bird by a serpent, crept forward and touched the head. It moved, and she again tried to lift it. This time she found she could do so. The head she lifted against her breast, and then laid it down with horror when she found the bosom of her nightgown was stained with blood. Pulling her wits together, for she felt that she needed them every one, she examined the head and neck. To her horror she found round the throat a strong thin copper wire, which disappeared through a hole in the floor. Apparently this had been pulled so tightly as to keep the head down and to choke the old man, and so cruelly as to cut deeply into the flesh. With a moan of horror Deborah dropped the head and ran to the trap-door in the corner. If anywhere, those who had murdered Aaron Norman were lurking in the cellar. But the trap-door would not open, and then she remembered that it was closed by a bolt underneath. She could not reach the midnight assassin that way.