The unseen speaker chuckled and went on with his monologue. “Although we have not met before, my young friends, I have climbed these many stairs to bid you goodbye. It pains me to send you off in this abrupt fashion,” again he chuckled, “but I cannot take you with _me_—and you are probably familiar with the adage that dead men tell no tales. You will be glad to hear that the young lady, Miss Deborah Lightfoot, will not mind her passing on to Happy Hunting Grounds quite as much as you two will. She was given a hypodermic in the car on the way up here, and is, to all intents and purposes, asleep.”