covered with blood—but it was Jim who pulled me to my feet, Jim and Michel Grey, who stood, half-dressed, in the passage.
The noise and din which followed this business is not to be described by any man like me. While I stood half-blinded, and with roaring sounds in my ears, gendarmes seemed to be filling all the Maison d'Or. But I had my wits about me, and I turned to Jim.
"Get Grey out," said I, "and take him in a cab to the Hôtel de Lille. We'll lose the reward if you don't. Tell him his father's there. I'm after Sir Nicolas."
"Is he here?" he asked, as he went to do what I bid him.
"God knows whether he is alive or dead," said I; and with that I called to the gendarmes and showed them the swinging staircase.
Five minutes after, we were down in a filthy cellar, standing over the motionless body of my master. But his groans told us that he lived, and when lights were brought we knew to what he owed his life. He had fallen on the dead body of another victim of the Maison d'Or.
••••••
Well, that's the story of the phantom staircase, though there are some things left you might like to know. How did Sir Nicolas Steele come to the shop, for instance? Why, it appeared that after they had got Grey in the house—which was one of the largest
