Holding the little light above his head Carter saw the underpinning of the floor. He also found the strong iron hinges upon which the great trap had worked at crime’s bidding. He was like a trapped fox. Hemmed in by walls of stone, with an impregnable ceiling overhead, where could there be an avenue of escape? All at once, at the last flashing of the lucifer, the detective saw some words on the wall. It reminded him of the words on the wall of the room where Jack, his spy, had been strangled. Had the same hand written them there? He threw the match to the ground, struck another and sprang eagerly forward. He held the little light against the wall and read as follows: “I am doomed to perish here. There is no escape from this hole of death. I was decoyed here like a rabbit, and I die for my folly. Let the next unfortunate person know that I, Lewis Newell, was the victim of Opal Lamont’s cunning. The woman is a tigress. Farewell. “LEWIS NEWELL.” For a full half minute the detective seemed to hold his breath. He read the writing again and again, and at last threw the stump of the match at his feet. Doomed to die! Another had been before him, and that person ascribed his end to Opal Lamont. Was this accusation true? The old detective recalled his adventure in the house on Cedar Street and how narrowly he had escaped death at the hands of this same girl. Perhaps this house belonged to the millionaire, like that one. Once more in darkness, Carter had time to study the situation. His curiosity got the better of him, and again he looked at the writing on the wall. It looked plainer than ever now. Who was Lewis Newell, the former victim? He had never heard of such a person, but he did not doubt the truth of the inscription. Suddenly the detective heard a sound that seemed to come from above. As he turned his face upward the floor seemed to lift, and his eyes were blinded by an intense glare. It was as if an electric globe had suddenly been uncovered in his face, and the light was so strong that he fell back, blinking his eyes like an owl. The glare vanished as suddenly as it came into being, but when he looked again he caught sight of a little ball burning in one corner of the trap. It sent out a singular odor, not unpleasant, but enervating, and the detective’s system seemed to yield to its influence from the first. “The accursed thing is the death agent which may have killed Newell!” he cried, as he sprang forward and set his foot on the burning ball. At that moment an explosion occurred, the interior of the dungeon seemed to collapse and Carter became unconscious. Perhaps the end had come. When the detective came out of the darkness of doom, as it were, he was lying on his face. In a moment he staggered up and put out his hands. They touched a wall as hard and cold as the one they had touched last. Where was he and in what sort of trap?