"Out on the roof!"
"Come on, Beresford!"
"Hustle--you men! He may be armed!"
"Righto--coming!"
And following Miss Cornelia's lead, Jack Bailey, Anderson, Beresford, and Billy dashed out into the corridor, leaving Dale and the frightened Lizzie alone with the Unknown.
"And I'd run if my legs would!" Lizzie despaired.
"Hush!" said Dale, her ears strained for sounds of conflict. Lizzie, creeping closer to her for comfort, stumbled over one of the Unknown's feet and promptly set up a new wail.
"How do we know this fellow right here isn't the Bat?" she asked in a blood-chilling whisper, nearly stabbing the unfortunate Unknown in the eye with her thumb as she pointed at him. The Unknown was either too dazed or too crafty to make any answer. His silence confirmed Lizzie's worst suspicions. She fairly hugged the floor and began to pray in a whisper.
Miss Cornelia re-entered cautiously with her candle, closing the door gently behind her as she came.
"What did you see?" gasped Dale.
Miss Cornelia smiled broadly.
"I didn't see anything," she admitted with the greatest calm. "I had to get that dratted detective out of the room before I assassinated him."
"Nobody went through the skylight?" said Dale incredulously.
"They have now," answered Miss Cornelia with obvious satisfaction. "The whole outfit of them."
She stole a glance at the veiled eyes of the Unknown. He was lying limply back in his chair, as if the excitement had been too much for him--and yet she could have sworn she had seen him leap to his feet, like a man in full possession of his faculties, when she had given her false cry of alarm.
"Then why did you--" began Dale dazedly, unable to fathom her aunt's reasons for her trick.
"Because," interrupted Miss Cornelia decidedly, "that money's in this room. If the man who took it out of the safe got away with it, why did he come back and hide there?"
Her forefinger jabbed at the hidden chamber wherein the masked intruder had terrified Dale with threats of instant death.
"He got it out of the safe--and that's as far as he did get with it," she persisted inexorably. "There's a HAT behind that safe, a man's felt hat!"
So this was the discovery she had hinted of to Anderson before he rebuffed her proffer of assistance!
"Oh, I wish he'd take his hat and go home!" groaned Lizzie inattentive to all but her own fears.
Miss Cornelia did not even bother to rebuke her. She crossed behind the wicker clothes hamper and picked up something from the floor.
"A half-burned candle," she mused. "Another thing the detective overlooked."