The Mystery Megapack

reached utter despair. She had searched the room for a means of ending her life, found none, and awaited her fate with apathy. The ominous threat that lay behind the blazing eyes of her captor did not escape her, and she felt the chill of death in his words, “ a signal honor !”
    Irma lost track of time, but she believed it to be late night on the fourth day of her imprisonment when the door opened and the tall Hindu, accompanied by two servants, entered the room and locked the door.
    He was dressed in the long robe of white silk and his feet were sandaled. His eyes burned with magnetic fire. Irma shrank from him.
    “Come, my child, the hour has arrived!”
    The words fell on Irma as a death warrant. She begged and pleaded the inexorable Hindu for mercy. The two servants gripped her arms and struggling futilely she was led to a corner of the room. She freed one arm and turned in a frenzied attack upon the Hindu gripping the other. Kicking, biting, scratching, she fought with the abandon of despair. Her free arm was recovered by the Hindu. She was turned and dragged to the corner. A panel of steel slid along the wall and the opening revealed a narrow, iron staircase leading down. Dragged through the gap in the wall, Irma’s strength left her. Her body went limp in the Hindus’ arms.
    * * * *
    Roy had taken Margaret to a matinee that afternoon. Three days had passed since the episode of the Bengali’s garden. Roy had read and heard nothing of the dead Hindu. Margaret said nothing unusual had happened at the house.
    Roy went to his club after taking Margaret home. Going into the dining room a page stopped him. Roy followed the boy to a phone. Margaret was on the line. She was calling from a drug store and wanted to see him at once.
    Ten minutes later Roy stopped his car at the curb in front of the store. Margaret ran to him. “We’ve got to do something, Roy. When I was dressing for dinner, I heard a muffled cry. Someone is locked up in the house. There was just one cry. It sounded as if a door might have been opened for a second and then closed. There were no other sounds. When I came down to dinner, Ishan Das Babaji looked at me strangely. I pretended not to notice and after a while he relaxed and seemed relieved.”
    “Want to go to the police?” Roy asked.
    “Oh! What would we say?”
    “Just what you have said to me.”
    Margaret shook her head. “No, Roy, it’s no good. He’d fool them in some way. Besides, there’s Aunt Elizabeth. I just can’t bring her into trouble. Maybe I’m wrong, Roy. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe one of the servants got hurt accidentally. Can’t we do anything without going to the police? Think what a fool I’d look if we brought the police and found nothing wrong. If we could only be sure first.”
    “All right,” Roy agreed quickly. “Get me into the house, into your room tonight. I’ll find out.…”
    “But how, Roy? How can I get you in without their knowing?”
    “I’ll get you a rope. There’s a radiator in your room? Right. Tie the rope to the radiator. At one o’clock, I’ll wave you a signal from the street. You lower the rope to the ground.”
    Half an hour later Roy left Margaret a block from the old brownstone house.
    A few minutes before one Roy stood beside the high brick wall. Margaret’s windows were open and he saw the curtains stirring gently in the faint breeze.
    For ten minutes Roy remained close against the wall watching those fluttering curtains. He glanced at his watch. A minute after one. His eyes strained up to the windows. The room was dark. His eyes saw no sign of movement beyond those curtains. Five minutes, ten, dragged by, still Margaret failed to appear at the window.
    Roy made a sudden decision. He’d get close to the house and risk a whistle.
    He glanced up and down the street, climbed the wall, and ran to the cover of the house. Roy crept along the wall toward the open windows. The big house was dark, silent. He looked up at the window again and saw a rope that reached to the ground.
    Roy ran forward and jerked the rope in a signal. He moved away from the wall and watched. The curtains above fluttered idly. Roy pulled at the rope again. He tested it with his weight, then began the ascent. His hands rested on the windowsill. He drew a knee up and whispered, “Margaret!”
    A curtain blew against his face. Roy flung the drape aside. Margaret lay on the bed. Roy called again, then scrambled into the room. He ran to the