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Hardy boys could see little chance of escape.

Markel was coming down the stairs. They could hear his heavy boots as they clattered on the steps.

Frank glanced around the room. There was one window, but it was boarded up. There was but one door, the one through which they had come.

Markel had reached the foot of the stairs by now. They heard him give a grunt of surprise as he picked up the pail.

"This was what did it," he called back to some one on the landing. "It fell down the stairs."

"Well, what of it?" Uncle Dock called down to him.

"Some one must have knocked it over."

"Couldn't have been any one," sniffed Uncle Dock. "There's nobody around. It's just your nerves."