There was a half-inch hole in the hardwood floor, and out of it issued a
length of green electric cord, connected with two small, flat metal
plates, one upon the other, so that when stepped upon a bell would ring
in Lydia's basement room.
But there was something odd about the wire. Although it was obviously
new, a section of it near the two metal plates was wrapped with black
adhesive tape. Another memory knocked for attention upon Dundee's mind.
_The long cord of the bronze lamp had been mended with exactly the same
sort of tape--about a foot from where it ended in the contact plug._
Within another two minutes, Dundee, with a flashlight he had found in
the kitchen, was exploring the dark, earthy portion of the basement
which lay directly to the east of Lydia Carr's basement room. And he
found what he was looking for--adhesive tape wrapped about the wire
which had been dropped through the floor of Nita's room before it had
been carried, by means of another hole, into Lydia's room.
He was too late--thanks to Captain Strawn. The bell which Sprague had
rigged up was in working order again. But as he was passing out of the
basement he glanced at the ceiling of the large room devoted to furnace,
hot-water heater and laundry tubs.
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