“Shoot them, my friend,” sneered Oberzohn. “If you see them, shoot them. But you will not see them, my brave man. They will be—where? No eyes shall see them come or go. They may lie behind a picture, they may wait until the door is opened, and then . . . !” Cuccini’s mouth was dry. “Call ’em off, doctor,” he said tremulously. “Your gun—on the table.” Still the rustling sound was audible. Cuccini hesitated for a second, then obeyed, and took up the notes. The other three men were huddled together by the fire-place, the picture of fear. “Don’t open the door, doc,” said Cuccini, but Oberzohn had already gripped the handle and turned it. They heard another door open and the click of the passage light as it had come on. Then he returned. “If you go now, I shall not wish to see you again. Am I not a man to whom all secrets are known? You are well aware!” Cuccini looked from the doctor to the door. “Want us to go?” he asked, troubled. Oberzohn shrugged. “As you wish! It was my desire that you should stay with me to-night—there is big work and big money for all of you.” The men were looking at one another uneasily. “How long do you want us to stay?” asked Cuccini. “To-night only; if you would not prefer . . .” To-night would come the crisis. Oberzohn had realized this since the day dawned for him. “We’ll stay—where do we sleep?” For answer Oberzohn beckoned them from the room and they followed him into the laboratory. In the wall that faced them was a heavy iron door that opened into a concrete storehouse, where he kept various odds and ends of equipment, oil and spirit for his cars, and the little gas engine that worked a small dynamo in the laboratory and gave him, if necessary, a lighting plant independent of outside current. There were three long windows heavily barred and placed just under the ceiling. “Looks like the condemned cell to me,” grumbled Cuccini suspiciously. “Are the bolts on the inside of a condemned cell?” asked Oberzohn. “Does the good warden give you the key as I give you?” Cuccini took the key. “All right,” he said ungraciously, “there are plenty of blankets here, boys—I guess you want us where the police won’t look, eh?” “That is my intention,” replied the doctor. Dr. Oberzohn closed the door on them and re-entered his study, his big mouth twitching with amusement. He pulled the cord again and closed the ventilator he had opened. It was only a few days before that he had discovered that there were dried leaves in the ventilator shaft, and that the opening of the inlet made them rustle, disturbingly for a man who was engaged in a profound study of the lesser known, and therefore the more highly cultured, philosophers. _Chapter XXXI_ _The Things in the Box_