An angry voice came up the stairway. “Jake! What are you doing up there? Bring that kid down.”

“She’s not here!” yelled back Jake, suddenly losing his temper. “What have you done with her? She’s gone!”

Red came tearing up, two steps at a time, his eyes narrow with anger. The first thing he saw in the room was Jo — and, of course, he thought she was George.

“What do you mean — saying she’s not here!” he raged. “Are you mad?”

“Nope,” said Jake, his eyes narrow too. “Not so mad as you are, anyway, Red. This kid isn’t that fellow’s daughter — the scientist chap we took the papers from — this is Simmy’s kid — Jo.”

Red looked at Jake as if he had gone off his head. Then he looked at Jo. He could see no difference between Jo and the absent George at all — short hair, freckles, turned-up nose — he couldn’t believe that she was Simmy’s daughter.

In fact, he didn’t believe it. He thought Jake and Simmy were suddenly deceiving him for some strange reason.

But Jo had a word to say, too. “Yes, I’m Jo,” she said. “I’m not Georgina. She’s gone. I’m just Jo, and Simmy’s my Dad. You’ve come to save me, haven’t you, Dad?”

Simmy hadn’t come to do anything of the sort, of course. He stared helplessly at Jo, completely bewildered.

Red completely lost his temper. As soon as he heard Jo’s voice he realized she was not George. Somehow or other he had been deceived — and seeing that this was Simmy’s daughter, then it must be Simmy who had had a hand in the deception!

He went suddenly over to Simmy and struck him hard, his eyes blazing. “Have you double-crossed me?” he shouted.

Simmy was sent flying to the floor. Jake came up immediately to help him. He tripped up Red, and leapt on him.

Jo looked at the three struggling, shouting men, and shrugged her shoulders. Let them fight! They had forgotten all about her, and that suited her very well. She ran to the door and was just going down the stairs, when an idea came into her sharp little mind. With an impish grin she turned back. She pulled the door to quietly — and then she turned the key in the lock, and shot the bolt.

The three men inside heard the key turn, and in a trice Jake was at the door, pulling at the handle.

“She’s locked us in!” he raged. “And shot the bolt, too.”

“Yell for Markhoff!” shouted Red, trembling with fury. And Markhoff, left down in the room at the bottom of the stairs, suddenly heard yells and shouts and tremendous hammerings at the door! He tore up at once, wondering what in the world had happened.

Jo was hiding in the next room. As soon as Markhoff went to the door and shot back the bolt she slipped out and was down the spiral stairway in a trice, unseen by Markhoff. She grinned to herself and hugged something to her thin little chest.