r a bottle of beer, and you fire a shot into the floor
here, or into somebody across, if you happen to see any one you don't
care for. I suggest that you stay and fire the shot, because if you
went, my friend, and nobody heard it, you would accuse me of shooting
from the back of the building somewhere."

He gave me the revolver and left me with a final injunction.

"Wait for ten minutes," he said. "It will take five for me to get out of
here, and five more to get into the club-house. Perhaps you'd better
make it fifteen."

CHAPTER XXII

IN THE ROOM OVER THE WAY

He went away into the darkness, and I sat down on an empty box by the
window and waited. Had any one asked me, at that minute, how near we
were to the solution of our double mystery, I would have said we had
made no progress--save by eliminating Wardrop. Not for one instant did I
dream that I was within less than half an hour of a revelation that
changed my whole conception of the crime.

I timed the interval by using one of my precious matches to see my watch
when he left. I sat there for what seemed ten minutes, listening to the
rush of the rain and the creaking of a door behind me In the darkness
somewhere, that swung back and forth rustily in the draft from the
broken windows. The gloom was infinitely depressing; away from Burton's
enthusiasm, his scheme lacked point; his argument, that the night
duplicated the weather conditions of that other night, a week ago,
seemed less worthy of consideration.

Besides, I have a horror of making myself ridiculous, and I had an idea
that it would be hard to explain my position, alone in the warehouse,
firing a revolver into the floor, if my own argument was right, and the
club should rouse to a search. I looked again at my watch; only six
minutes.

Eight minutes.

Nine minutes.

Every one who has counted the passing of seconds knows how they drag.
With my eyes on the room across, and my finger on the trigger, I waited
as best I could. At ten minutes I was conscious there was some one in
the room over the way. And then he came into view from the side
somewhere, and went to the table. He had his back to me, and I could
only see that he was a large man, with massive shoulders and dark hair.

It was difficult to make out what he was doing. After a half-minute,
however, he stepped to one side, and I saw that he had lighted a candle,
and was systematically reading and then burning certain papers, throwing