The man hesitated, and his interrogator glanced significantly at the screw in which the captive’s hand still rested. It was enough for the man on the bed. He mentioned a name. Soo recognised it as the keeper of a Chinese lodging-house in the East End of London--a man who was known to him to be the agent of the Bannermen. CHAPTER IX. THE ABDUCTION. Yvonne Yale had spent a tiring and a busy day shopping with her mother. It was not a relaxation which she often allowed herself. Mrs. Yale took shopping very seriously, and would follow a will-o’-the-wisp of a five-shilling bargain through enticing marshes of other departments where scarcely a weed grew which was not labelled twenty-five shillings. After dinner, Mrs. Yale announced the fact that she was dead tired; she implied the further fact that the exertions of the day, shared by her daughter, had not effected her, and that the energy dissipated by Mrs. Yale herself was sufficient for two. She went to bed, leaving Yvonne half a dozen letters to answer--letters which regretted the inability of Mrs. Yale to settle an account, but promised “next month,” not only to clear off existing liabilities, but to extend her scope of patronage. Yvonne’s self-respect led her to tone down the letters, to make them less optimistic as to the future and less vague as to the present. She finished her work at half-past eleven, and signed her mother’s name with a flourish, enclosed the letters in envelopes, and placed them on the hall table ready for posting. She made her customary round of the house--their one servant was in bed at that hour--and went to her room feeling depressed and worried. She could not trace her state of mind to any particular course, and she told herself that the reason was purely physical. She undressed in record time, jumped into bed, switched out the light, and her head had hardly touched the pillow before she was asleep. How long she had been sleeping she could not tell, but something woke her with a start. The room was dark, the only light being that from the lamp in the street below. She was wide awake, and her reasoning faculty told her that something must have occurred--there must have been some extraordinary noise to have brought about this condition of wakefulness. She lay perfectly still--listening. For a long time she heard nothing and saw nothing; then for a moment she saw a tiny streak of bright light in the room. Before she could touch it her wrist was grasped, and a long, bony hand closed over her mouth. “Be silent!” said a voice in her ear. “If you make a noise I will kill you!” She felt a grip on her throat, and lay paralysed with terror; she had neither the will nor the ability to scream. At last she found her voice. “Take what you want and go,” she said. “Where do you keep your jewels?” said the man who held her, in a low voice. The ghost of a smile, in spite of the tragic situation, dawned on Yvonne’s face.