eart was
pounding until my ears roared; everything else was so deathly still.

"A glance told me that the rear room was empty of any living presence.
Cautiously I pushed open the bath room door; but it was too dark to see
inside."

"Was the door into the hall shut?" I interrupted quickly, remembering
that Stodger believed it to be open.

"Yes. I entered a bit timidly; all my assurance had somehow
evaporated. Then--then, before I had time to make another move, two
hands seized me.

"I was thrown violently against the wall, and one of the hands tried to
grasp my throat. I was fighting as hard as I could; but--I was
helpless.

"Then I screamed. I put my whole soul into it. Everything slipped
away from me, and I knew nothing more until Belle was holding me in her
arms and I felt her dabbing my face with water. . . . Dear girl, don't
look so tragic; I'm all right now."

While Genevieve hung close at my side, the inquest waited until I had
searched the place from cellar to garret. But never a trace of the
mysterious intruder did I find. When I became satisfied that he had
safely made his escape I asked Genevieve to describe the face.

"I 'm afraid I can't," she returned hesitatingly. "I had such a
lightning-like glimpse of it. Still, in a general way, it was very
swarthy and wrinkled--quite ape-like. The lower part was covered with
a short, curling, sparse black beard; the eyes were like"--she searched
for a simile--"like a snake's."

"That's graphic enough," I said; "but the description fits no
countenance that I can now call to mind."

"What can it mean?" she asked wonderingly.

"It means," I grimly replied, "that I guessed right: the ruby is in
this house. And I 'm going to have a time keeping it here, too, until
I find it myself."

The one mistake of the intruder, whoever he might be, had been in
peeping between the alcove curtains; of course he had been
reconnoitring only; but a person who could move through the house so
noiselessly might easily have accomplished, without discovery, whatever
errand brought him there.

The idea was positively uncanny and far from pleasant to dwell upon.
Stodger's hearing may not have been remarkably acute, but if my life
depended upon shutting that door so close behind him and not attracting
his attention, why, I should have hesitated long before essaying the
performance. To have the ruby lifted from under the very noses of the
watchers--while they were wide