"I know," Alden interrupted, "there may be only one more to come? You're thinking that, after all those expected have arrived, there'll be trouble in getting the door to open?" "I was thinking that, too," said Martin. "Maybe they're all arrived as it is; but we stand a still worse chance if we wait." "Come on," said Mr. Oppner, with a rising excitement evident in his voice. "We know there's one big fish in the net, anyway!" _Thud-thud-thud!_ "There's another car coming," cried Alden. "Hurry up, Mr. Oppner! This way. Mind your head through this broken part. We'll be on the steps as the car comes around the drive!" They crept through the gap below and ran across the road, Oppner as actively as either of his companions. Already, the white beam of the headlight was cutting-the gloom, below, where the road was heavily bordered with trees. "Just in time!" Past the gate they ran, and pattered on to the drive. Behind them, a big car was just spinning past the gate. As it came leaping along the drive Alden ran up the four stone steps to the door and jammed his thumb hard against the bell button. At the same moment, Martin whistled shrilly, three times. Whereupon affairs began to move in meteoric fashion. Several people came bundling out of the car. From the gloom all about it there sounded the scamper of hurrying feet. The door was thrown open, and a blaze of light swept the steps. Alden leapt over the threshold, pistol in hand, yelling at the same time: "Follow me, boys!" Like the swoop of heated play to a goal burst a human wave upon the steps. Oppner and Martin were swept irresistibly upward and inward. They were surrounded, penned in. Then: "Break away, you goldarned idiot!" rose Alden's angry voice ahead. The lights went out. The door slammed. "Alden!" cried Mr. Oppner. "Alden!" Someone pinioned him from behind. "There's a mistake, you blamed ass!" he screamed. "I ain't one of 'em! Alden! Martin!" A hand was pressed firmly over his mouth, and with veins swelling up and eyes starting from his head in impotent fury, Mr. Oppner was hustled forward through the darkness. Around him a number of people seemed to be moving, and when he found his feet upon stairs, several unseen hands were outstretched to thrust him upward. The darkness was impenetrable. Apparently the stair was uncarpeted, as likewise was the corridor along which he presently found himself proceeding. The echo of many footsteps rang through the house. It sounded shell-like, empty. Then it seemed to him that not so many were about him. He felt his revolver slide from his hip-pocket. He was pushed gently forward, and a door closed behind him. The sound of footsteps died away with that of whispering voices. Came a sudden angry roar, muffled, distant, he thought in the voice of Alden. It was stifled, cut off ere it had come to full crescendo, in a very significant manner. Silence, then, fell about him, the chill silence of an empty house.