"I DON'T THINK this is the way out. There was panic in Irene s voice which she could not control.

Burfoot had stopped and locked the door through which they had come. There might be no certain significance in that, but he was now leading the way to a glass-walled chamber, the use of which was not difficult to guess, even apart from the faint penetrating odour which never left its precincts, even when it was not charged with the fumes by which it destroyed its countless unsuspecting victims, who were repaid for the love and loyalty they had given to men by this murderous treachery.

Burfoot looked at her with the derisive grin she had seen at their first encounter. He said: "You can please yourself. It's all one to me. But I should say a good whiff of gas is better than being roasted alive."

"But - you can't mean it!" she answered faintly. "You said you'd show me the way out, and I'd give you a hundred pounds. Suppose we say two? Or what do you want? It's no use trying to frighten me like this. You can't want to be hanged. I've told you the police are on the way here. I know they are. . . ."

She stopped before the malicious amusement in his eyes. Incredible as it must seem, she knew at that moment that he meant to kill her, and that there was no hope in any pleading, and little in appeals either to greed or fear.

The inclination to faint came again, as it had done in the room above, and she knew that, if she should do so, there would be no return to consciousness, unless it should be in some horror of mortal pain.

She looked at the man, who was a head taller than herself massive, muscular, able to break her back over his knee, and she knew that, even if she had retained the poker that she had been cajoled into laying down so foolishly, it would have been useless to her. Her wits must save her, or nothing would. And how could her wits avail?

The man had listened to her with no sign of relenting. She saw that her terror was amusement to him - that he would find pleasure in that which he was meaning to do. But he answered her, in the tone of one who would show sense to a fool.

"You didn't think we should let you live? You know a damned sight too much for that."

"If I knew that you had saved my life, wouldn't that be a good thing for you?"

It was shrewdly suggested. For one moment he may have hesitated as to whether it would not be best to take whatever money she might promise now and afterwards prove able and willing to pay, and to take the credit of saving her from Snacklit's hands. But would it save him? It is no sufficient legal defence to say that you declined to kill a young lady at night, if it can be proved against you that you helped to murder a taxi-driver at any earlier hour. No, there was one way, and only one, that was sure. . . . And then there was the noise of a key turning in a locked door, and Billson stood in the entrance.

For a moment the three stood looking at one another in silence. Then Billson said:

"Kate thought this was about how it'ud be. But I'm not standing for it. It's a bit too thick. . . . You should have left the key in the lock if you didn't want me to come butting in."

Burfoot cursed to himself. It was true that he had not given a thought to the duplicate keys that always hung in the outer hall those that Billson, who did the routine killing, was accustomed to use. And he was not a quick-witted man. He was used to carrying out the orders of others, not to plan for himself.

"It's the master's orders," he said at last. "You'd better talk it over with him."

"Yes. I'll do that. He'll have to know that we don't stand for murder, not Kate or I. You'd better come and hear what I've got to say."

"We'll wait here till you get back."

"Mr. Billson," Irene exclaimed, in a fresh access of terror, "you're not going to leave me here?"

"No. I won't do that. And I've changed my mind about seeing the master. We'll clear out without any more words."

He had guessed that, if he should leave them together, there would be no change in the programme that he had interrupted and, after that, was it likely that he would be allowed to escape? He remembered Wilkes. A man as powerful and perhaps even more brutal than the one who confronted him now If he should go upstairs, he might come down to find that Kate had been already dealt with, and that he had to face two men as desperate, and each as strong as himself.

One, at least, had become desperate now. Burfoot said, "No, you don't." His arm swept round, striking Irene with a force which threw her against the wall, from which she collapsed on to the floor. He leapt forward. "You yellow rat!" he cried savagely, as his left shot outward for Billson's chin.

It was a blow which might have been decisive, but Billson swerved, and it did no m............