Alan shook him. "The girl's room--where they've got her now." "Key to Bluebeard's room--don't get excited--I'm not excited." He was trembling. "When you come to live here--" "Charlie, listen! I want to help that girl--get her out of here. She isn't sick." "_I_ can get out of here--but my mother told me not to. I've got a key to the little gate in the fence behind the tennis court. I've had it a long time. You know how to make a key? You take wax and get an impression--I had a locksmith make the key when I was home at Christmas. Mother thought it was my trunk key--but it wasn't. I thought I might use it to slip out and go home some night. Only mother would be angry. And I had Bluebeard's key made at the same time--that's the key to the roof, where you can see things--" From the door I caught a glimpse of a man approaching along the corridor. "Alan! Here he comes!" Alan said vehemently: "Charlie, listen! Get this right! Tonight, about ten o'clock! Can you have your keys and come to the tennis court gate?" "Yes! Tonight--" "Can you get there, alone? Tell nobody? Let nobody see you!" "Yes. At night--dark deeds, alone." He heard Dr. Turber's step. He added swiftly: "I'll be there--ten o'clock tonight! I can hide you in my room. At eleven, they're all asleep--we'll go to the roof--I call it Bluebeard's--" "Not a word to anybody, Charlie! For the girl's sake!" "Yes! And because we're friends--" Alan pushed him away; and said, conversationally: "So you had a good game, Charlie? That's fine--but you'd better go wash up for supper." "All right, I will. Mother said never be late for supper." We all turned as Dr. Turber entered the room. * * * * * I saw Dr. Wolf Turber as a man of about forty, obviously of extraordinary personality. There are many men in this world who have a power, for good or evil, which marks them apart from their fellows. A radiation--an aura--a something in their unconscious bearing; a confidence, a flash of the eye, all unmistakable. Dr. Turber was such a one. Marked for big things--good or evil. He was, to me at least, at once physically repellent of aspect. A very heavy, powerful frame, with wide shoulders, thick and solid; a deep chest; long powerful arms. Had he stood erect, he might have been fully six feet tall. But he was hunched. Not exactly a hunchback; rather, a permanent stoop which had rounded his shoulders almost to a deformity. His head was massive, set low on a wide, short neck. Close-cropped black hair, turning gray at the temples. A solid, wide-jawed face, smooth-shaved, with dark eyes gazing through a pair of incongruously dapper rimless glasses, from which a wide black ribbon depended.