Much easier it was to reconstruct what had happened than it was to answer the first question as to where he was. Beyond the fact that he was in some dark place—very dark—and that it was damp and noisome, Tom could not imagine where he had been taken. It was coming back to him now, and he helped his dazed brain to clear by talking aloud to himself. He realized that he was alone—or so he judged—for his first exclamation after recovering consciousness had brought forth no answer. “Let’s see now,” mused the youth. “I knocked off Barsky’s wig and false beard and saw that he had close-cropped red hair. This makes him, beyond doubt, the scoundrel who attacked dad and the others. It also makes me think this Barsky is a prison bird, or has been at one time. “He got mad when I fired him, and he came at me. I remember that, but it’s the last thing I do remember. He must have given me a crack on the head with a black-jack and knocked me out. It happened in the little passage near the experiment room, and no one saw it. Then he must have tied me up and carried me here—wherever this is.” And Tom would have given a goodly sum, just then, to know exactly where he was. It did not seem possible that Barsky could have packed him into an automobile and carried him far away. “He would have been seen by some one in the office or the shops,” reasoned Tom. “Therefore I must be hidden in some place not very far from my own home or the office. Now where is there a locality like this around our shops?” Having thus considerably narrowed the inquiry, Tom further simplified it by a process of elimination. He sensed that he was in some place below the level of the ground. The close, stuffy atmosphere of his prison proved that. “And it’s damp, too,” mused Tom. “It has held water! Ah, I have it—the old cistern under the first shop we built!” When the Swift Construction Company was first started it was in a modest way, with only a small shop. Beneath this Mr. Swift had had built a large cistern for the storage of rain water, which, because of its softness, or non-chemical quality, was needed in his experiments. Later, when the business grew and the little old shop was abandoned, the cistern was emptied and closed, a larger storage tank being built in another place. Entrance to the abandoned cistern could be gained by a trap door in the floor of the shop, but as Tom remembered there was no ladder in the reservoir. “Barsky must have lowered me in here with a rope,” thought Tom. “Then he simply dropped the cover on and ran away. It was clever of him. Now he has time to work some of his plans, I suppose. This is all a deep-laid plot, and it’s been in the making some time. I wish I had taken dad’s advice and never hired that fellow! However, it’s too late to think about that now! I must get myself out of here and stop him—that is, if it isn’t too late!”