Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/180

170 "You leave me no choice," Black whimpered. "No choice."

Garth drew him to the sidewalk.

"If you waste time steering me wrong," he said, "I'm through. And don't forget I have a gun. Try to throw me down once we're in, I'll use it."

Black made an effort to square his shoulders. He crossed the avenue with a lurching gait. Garth glanced back. A dark figure skulked after them. So that was all right. The inspector would know their destination immediately.

"One thing," Garth asked. "How did you have the nerve to drive your limousine to the place last night?"

"I didn't," Black answered. "I picked it up in Third Avenue."

He did not speak again, and Garth no longer urged him. He walked straight for the block in which he had been at his folly last night. But he did not pause there. He continued across Lexington Avenue and made confidently for the deserted, dust-filled house which just now had mocked the police. Garth, amazed, followed him to the basement door.

Black took a key from his pocket, and with the ease of long habit inserted it through the obscurity in the lock. The door opened and Garth walked into the blackness with a quickening suspense. His apprehension was for Nora rather than himself. What had happened to her when she had stepped into the dusty hall? Her only chance was that he