otten one thing," she continued. "I must give you a
duplicate latch-key to let yourself in with. I have a habit of falling
asleep in the afternoon, and you might ring the bell for half an hour
and I should not hear you."

She went back into the room we had left and returned in a few moments
with the latch-key, which she gave me.

Despite my endeavours to persuade her, she went with me to the front
door, and I felt a deep pity for her when I left, thinking that she was
to spend the night alone in that dismal old house.

"_Au revoir_ until five to-morrow," I said cheerfully, as I bowed and
left her.

She smiled benignantly upon me.

"_Au revoir_," she answered.

When the door had closed and it was too late to call her back, I
recollected one piece of forgetfulness on my part; I had never thought
to ask her name!

CHAPTER II

THE MAN WITH THE GLASS EYE

I took a note of the number of the house--it was 190 Monmouth
Street--and gazed a little while at its neglected exterior before I
walked away into the mist towards my hotel.

Over the whole of the front windows faded Venetian blinds were drawn
down; it was one of those houses, sometimes met with, shut up for no
apparent reason, and without any intention on the part of the owner,
apparently, to dispose of it, for there was no board up. It was not
until later that I learned that the house belonged to the old lady
herself.

I returned to my hotel, that luxurious resort of the wealthy and
rheumatic, its well furnished interior looking particularly comfortable
in the ruddy glow of two immense fires in the hall. I had left it
early in the afternoon, before the lamps were lit, tired of being
indoors; the change was most agreeable from the damp, misty atmosphere
without.

I betook myself to the smoking-room, and, being a lover of the
beverage, ordered tea, with the addition of buttered toast. Delighted
with the big glowing fire in the room, and believing myself to be
alone, I threw myself back luxuriously into a big, saddle-bag chair.

As it ran back with the impetus of my descent into it, it jammed into
one behind, and from this immediately arose a very indignant face which
looked into mine as I turned round. It was a dark, foreign-looking
face, the red face of a man who wore a black moustache and a little
imperial, and whose bloodshot brown eyes simply _glared_ through a pair
of gold-rimmed pince-nez. There was something very strange about these
ey