“That,” announced Judy when she could find her voice, “was not a noise in the pipes. Someone’s in there, and I think he’s hurt. Shall I try again?”

Horace did not answer. He stood there as white as a ghost, with his mouth half open. The beam of his flashlight was directed upward. Judy saw a great many water pipes interlaced overhead. She supposed they could carry sound as well as water. But someone had to be in the room to make the sound, and she had a feeling it was someone who needed help and needed it badly. She rapped again, and this time there was no answer.

“Do you need help?” called Judy.

She didn’t know this man. She had no idea who he was. But, being Judy, she was ready to be a friend to anyone in trouble.

“Please answer me! I’m your friend,” she called again.

She had to call a third time before the man answered. His voice was fainter now.

“I have no friends,” he replied. “Why can’t you just go away and let me die in peace?”

For a moment Judy didn’t know what to say. She was ready to help him. But how could she?

“He wants to die,” she whispered. “Oh, Horace! We must do something. Do you think he’s a prisoner in there? Maybe he can’t open the door.”

“Ask him,” Horace suggested.

“Are you locked in?” called Judy. “We’ll get you out, somehow, if you are.”

“It’s no use,” the man replied. “I’d rather die here than in prison. Now go away!”

“I think we’d better. We’ll have a look around and then notify Peter. This is news, all right,” declared Horace. “Probably this man is one of a gang. Maybe he was hurt escaping from the police.”

“But Horace,” Judy objected, “this man’s hurt, and he needs help. We should call Dad.”

“Maybe we should. Tell him we’ll bring a doctor.”

Judy told him, but “Leave me alone!” was the only answer.

“Who are you?” called Horace. To this and more questions both he and Judy asked there was no answer. The man was through talking and told them so by silence. The air became heavy and oppressive as they waited. From time to time they would call more questions or offer help only to hear their own echoes sounding hollow in the tunnel. There was, Judy noticed presently, one other sound.

“Hear it!” she whispered. “Let’s find out what it is. It sounds like someone breathing.”

“Maybe it’s a dragon breathing fire.” Horace was trying to be funny to keep up his spirits. “I’m not feeling like St. George this morning.”

“You are a hero,” Judy reminded him. “It was in all the papers. ‘Hero of the Roulsville flood—’”

“Cut it out, sis! You know I was scared silly. I’m not wearing my suit of armor.” Judy knew he was remembering another equally shivery adventure in a ruined castle. “I could use it, though,” he added. “Now what are we up against?”

“It looks like another pipe,” replied Judy, turning on her own flashlight to see it better. “There’s a brick wall beyond it. But what’s beyond that?”

Led on by curiosity, Judy soon discovered another locked door. No moans came from behind it, and when she knocked and called there was no answer. There wasn’t a sound except—

Judy turned quickly. The sound now came from a definite direction. Was it something burning? The air was suddenly warm against her face.

“Hey, sis! You know what?” Horace said in a whisper. “There’s heat down here, and I don’t like it. What do you suppose makes it so warm?”

“It could be only a furnace,” Judy said.

She came upon it so unexpectedly that she let out a little shriek and then laughed at herself for doing so. She had been right.

“It is!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Horace! That’s all it is. I don’t know what I thought it was at first, but it’s a little pot-bellied stove with pipes branching out in all directions. Come and see!”

Horace came at once and saw the furnace. There it sat like a squat, red-eyed demon in a little lair of its own. It was burning coal from a bin beside it, and the fire showed through a grate in the door. Horace opened it to show Judy the blaze.

“Comforting, isn’t it?” she said. “Though I wonder how they get the coal down here. And who shovels it? I hope, whoever it is, he doesn’t shovel us in.”

“He might. How do we know he doesn’t have horns and a tail? This place needs more than heat to take the chill out of it,” Horace said with a shiver. “A little warm sunlight would help.”

“There is a little light where we dropped into the tunnel,” Judy remembered. “There may be other openings, too. A coal chute, maybe. There must be light of some kind in those locked rooms.”

“I hope there is,” agreed Horace. “It would be pretty dismal in there where that man is without any light at all.”

“He could live down here, I suppose, with light and heat,” Judy went on thinking aloud. “But why? Surely nobody would choose to live underground like a mole. If he’s hurt, Horace, why doesn’t he want us to help him? He said he wanted us to leave him alone to die. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does to me,” declared Horace. “Obviously, someone has imprisoned him under the fountain for a reason. Maybe he thinks we’re his captors and that’s why he doesn’t trust us.”

“But I told him we were his friends,” Judy protested.

“But are we? How friendly can we be if he’s a criminal?”

“Oh, Horace! He’s a human being,” cried Judy. “No matter what he’s done, he has a right to decent care. We must get him out of there and call Dad or else notify Peter—”

“And have him send the man back to prison?”

“I suppose he’d have to, wouldn’t he? If he’s an escaped prisoner, or if he’s being held here by criminals, Peter may be looking for him. The police weren’t. They were looking for jewels. You don’t think they’re hidden in the room with him, do you? Maybe he is a thief. Maybe he was hurt trying to escape from the police—or Peter.” This thought alarmed Judy. “You know, Horace,” she went on more urgently, “he does have to shoot at people sometimes. To make them halt, I mean. If he wounded this man—but he couldn’t have done it! It isn’t like Peter at all. Oh dear! I’m all mixed up. If I help this prisoner escape I won’t be helping Peter, will I? Why do I get into these dreadful situations?”

“It’s your instinct to help people,” Horace told her with what sounded like real sympathy. “I know how you feel about that man in there, but what can we do if he won’t cooperate?”

“We can keep trying,” replied Judy. “No matter who he is, we can’t leave him in there to die. I’ll call him again. Not you, Horace! He might think you were a policeman or something. We can’t even let him know you’re a reporter. The thought of publicity might scare him, and there’s enough down here to terrify him as it is.”

“You’re not just talking,” Horace agreed as they moved closer to the locked door.

“Oh, mister!” Judy called out sweetly. “We’re still here, and we still want to help you if you’ll let us. We may be strangers, but we want to be friends—”

“Yeah?” The voice behind the door was less polite. “I know. Friends like Roger Banning—ready to jump on a guy when he’s already down.”

A friend? Roger Banning? That rang a bell in Judy’s mind, but for a moment the thought that followed didn’t register.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“You might tell me who you are before I do any more talking,” the man replied.