a light dinner and came back after dark, refreshed
and eager for action, only to find that Bill Gregg was incapable of
being roused. He slept like a dead man.

Ronicky went to the window and sat alone. Few of the roomers were home
in the house opposite. They were out for the evening, or for dinner,
at least, and the face of the building was dark and cold, the light
from the street lamp glinting unevenly on the windowpanes. He had sat
there staring at the old house so many hours in the past that it was
beginning to be like a face to him, to be studied as one might study
a human being. And the people it sheltered, the old hag who kept the
door, the sneering man and Caroline Smith, were to the house like the
thoughts behind a man's face, an inscrutable face. But, if one cannot
pry behind the mask of the human, at least it is possible to enter a
house and find--

At this point in his thoughts Ronicky Doone rose with a quickening
pulse. Suppose he, alone, entered that house tonight by stealth, like
a burglar, and found what he could find?

He brushed the idea away. Instantly it returned to him. The danger of
the thing, and danger there certainly would be in the vicinity of
him of the sardonic profile, appealed to him more and more keenly.
Moreover, he must go alone. The heavy-footed Gregg would be a poor
helpmate on such an errand of stealth.

Ronicky turned away from the window, turned back to it and looked once
more at the tall front of the building opposite; then he started to
get ready for the expedition.

The preparations were simple. He put on a pair of low shoes, very
light and with rubber heels. In them he could move with the softness
and the speed of a cat. Next he dressed in a dark-gray suit, knowing
that this is the color hardest to see at night. His old felt hat he
had discarded long before in favor of the prevailing style of the
average New Yorker. For this night expedition he put on a cap which
drew easily over his ears and had a long visor, shadowing the upper
part of his face. Since it might be necessary to remain as invisible
as possible, he obscured the last bit of white that showed in his
costume, with a black neck scarf.

Then he looked in the glass. A lean face looked back at him, the eyes
obscured under the cap, a stern, resolute face, with a distinct threat
about it. He hardly recognized himself in the face in the glass.

He went to his suit case and brought out his favorite revolver. It was