A gang of twenty-four men came down, with steel plates, steel joists, steel posts, and in seven hours' time Black Riot's box was converted into a sort of safe, to which I alone hold the key the instant it is locked up for the night.

A steel grille about half a foot deep, and so tightly meshed that nothing bigger than a mouse could pass through, runs all round the enclosure close to the top of the walls, and this supplies ventilation.

When the door is closed at night, it automatically connects itself with an electric gong in my own bedroom, so that the slightest attempt to open it, or even to touch it, would hammer out an alarm close to my head." "Has it ever done so ?" "Yes--last night, when Tolliver was killed." "How killed, Sir Henry?
Stabbed or shot ?" "Neither.

He appeared to have been strangled, poor fellow, and to have died in most awful agony." "Strangled?
But, my dear sir, that would hardly have been possible in so short a time.

You say your men heard him call out for help.