Whitney and I were both stunned. I don't
remember a thing after that, until I woke up here. Where is it?"
I listened, with one eye on that door that had been barricaded.
Was Lockwood really innocent, after all? I could not think that
Inez Mendoza could make such a mistake, if he were not.
Lockwood clenched his fists. "Some one shall pay for this," he
exclaimed.
There was the problem--the inner room. Who would go in? We looked
at each other a moment.
The room in which we were was a living room, and perhaps, when
there were visitors in the little house, was a guest-room. At any
rate, on one side was a huge davenport by day which could be
transformed into a folding bed at night.
Lockwood looked about hastily and his eye fell on the door, then
on this folding bed.
With a wrench, he opened it and seized the cotton mattress from
the inside. With his gun ready he advanced toward the barricaded
door, holding the mattress as a shield, for his experience in wild
countries had taught him that a cotton mattress is about as good a
thing to stop bullets as one could find on the spur of the moment.
Kennedy and the officer followed just behind, and the three threw
their weights on the door almost before we knew what they were
about.
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