“Make sure that the door is locked,” he muttered.

He tried it, and it was locked beyond any shadow of doubt.

“The window.”

Shutters covered it, and these were fastened with a padlock.

He considered this padlock attentively; then, drawing from his pocket one of those wonderful knives which are really miniature tool-chests, he raised from a grove the screw-driver which formed part of its equipment, and with neatness and dispatch unscrewed the staple to which the padlock was attached!

A moment later he had opened the shutters and was looking out into the drizzle of the night.

The room in which he was confined was on the third floor of a dingy, brick-built house; a portion of some other building faced him; down below was a stone-paved courtyard.  To the left stood a high wall, and beyond it he obtained a glimpse of other dingy buildings.  One lighted window was visible—­a square window in the opposite building, from which amber light shone out.

Somewhere in the street beyond was a standard lamp.  He could detect the halo which it cast into the misty rain.  The glass was very dirty, and young Kerry raised the sash, admitting a draught of damp, cold air into the room.  He craned out, looking about him eagerly.

A rainwater-pipe was within reach of his hand on the right of the window and, leaning out still farther, young Kerry saw that it passed beside two other, larger, windows on the floor beneath him.  Neither of these showed any light.

Dizzy heights have no terror for healthy youth.  The brackets supporting the rain-pipe were a sufficient staircase for the agile Dan, a more slippery prisoner than the famous Baron Trenck; and, discarding his muffler and his Burberry, he climbed out upon the sill and felt with his thick-soled boots for the first of these footholds.  Clutching the ledge, he lowered himself and felt for the next.

Then came the moment when he must trust all his weight to the pipe.  Clenching his teeth, he risked it, felt for and found the third angle, and then, still clutching the pipe, stood for a moment upon the ledge of the window immediately beneath him.  He was curious respecting the lighted window of the neighbouring house; and, twisting about, he bent, peering across—­and saw a sight which arrested his progress.

The room within was furnished in a way which made him gasp with astonishment.  It was like an Eastern picture, he thought.  Her golden hair dishevelled and her hands alternately clenching and unclenching, a woman whom he considered to be most wonderfully dressed was pacing wildly up and down, a look of such horror upon her pale face that Dan’s heart seemed to stop beating for a moment!

Here was real trouble of a sort which appealed to all the chivalry in the boy’s nature.  He considered the window, which was glazed with amber-coloured glass, observed that it was sufficiently open to enable him to slip the fastening and open it entirely could he but reach it.  And—­yes!—­there was a rain-pipe!