k, disdaining to
inspect various gruesome specimens in alcohol ranged along a shelf.
Aided by an occasional match which he lighted and shielded in his left
hand, he found the cabinet and with his key opened the door. The flame
of his match too carefully guarded, flickered in his fingers, failed
and went out. He thrust it hastily into one pocket, drew a fresh match
from another and was about to scratch it across his leather wristlet
when he heard a door open. The next moment he saw, under the door
leading from his room to the consulting room, a flash of light.

Awkward as it was to be interrupted, he faced the surprise with such
composure as he could muster. Who could it be? he asked himself. The
family was accounted for, the house locked. He scratched the match
again. As it flared up he looked into the cabinet, found the packet of
needles, tore a card of them in two, slipped one piece into a waistcoat
pocket and closed the cabinet door. He turned to listen to the office
intruder. Laramie hoped that nothing would bring the unwelcome visitor
into the operating room, but as he stood awaiting developments the
unlocked door was pushed open and a tiny flashlight was thrown into the
room in which he stood.

Fortunately Laramie outside the circle of light was left in the dark.
The intruder was a woman. He shrank back and she luckily turned her
light from him but only to encounter, as she stepped forward, Flat Nose
George, no less forbidding now than he had been in life. The woman
with the light started back in horror and a sharp little exclamation
betrayed her identity; Laramie was at once aware that he was facing
Kate Doubleday.

Nothing could have pleased him less. In so small a room it was
impossible to escape detection. He could almost hear her breathe and
would have reveled in her presence so close, but that the apprehension
of frightening her weighed on him like a mountain. Hardly daring to
breathe himself he cursed the erratic doctor's skeleton pet--hung, of
all places, where every little while he was cutting people open.

The skeleton had already set the girl's nerves on edge. What would
happen if she discovered a live man as well as the ghastly remains of a
dead one--not to mention alcoholic clippings from other subnormal
notables of the mountains? With the flashlight she was evidently
searching for something and Laramie surmised it must be the electric
light switch: "I think," he suggested in as st