ys subtly but
intensely annoyed him. There was something in that smile which he did
not understand, but he suspected that it held an element of amused
understanding. So might Doris, years hence, smile at her little son.

"She thinks I'm a reed," Laurie reflected as he waited in the outer hall
for the elevator. "I don't blame her. I've been a perfectly good reed
ever since I met her friend Bertie."

His thoughts, thus drawn to Shaw, dwelt on that ophidian personality.
When the elevator arrived he was glad to recognize the familiar face of
Sam.

"Yaas, sah," that youth affably explained, with a radiant exhibition of
teeth, "it's Henry's night _off_, so I has to be _on_."

They were alone in the car. Laurie, lighting a cigarette, asked a casual
question.

"There's a plump person in blue serge who hangs around here a good
deal," he remarked, indifferently. "Does he live in the building?"

"The one wid eyes what sticks out?"

"That's the one."

Sam's jaw set.

"No, sah, dat party don' live yere. An' ef he don' stop hangin' 'round
yere, somethin's gwine t' happen to dat man," he robustly asserted.

"What's he after?"

"I dunno. I only seen him twicet. Las' time he was sneakin' fum de top
flo'. But I cert'n'y don' like dat man's looks!"

Nothing more was to be learned from Sam. Laurie thoughtfully walked out
into the square. He had taken not more than a dozen steps when a voice,
strange yet unpleasantly familiar, accosted him.

"Good-evening, Mr. Devon," it said.

Laurie turned sharply. Herbert Ransome Shaw was walking at his side,
which was as it should be. It was to meet and talk with Herbert Ransome
Shaw that he had so abruptly ended his call.

"Look here," he said at once, "I want a few words with you."

"Exactly." Shaw spoke with suave affability. "It is to have a few words
that I am here."

"Where can we go?"

Shaw appeared to reflect.

"Do you mind coming to my rooms?" Laurie hesitated. "I live quite near,
and my quarters, though plain, are comfortable."

Anger surged up in the young man beside him. There was something almost
insulting in Shaw's manner as he uttered the harmless words, and in the
reassuring yet doubtful intonation of his voice.

"Confound him!" Laurie told himself. "The hound is actually hinting that
I'm afraid to go!" Aloud, he said brusquely, "All right."

"You have five minutes to spare? That's capital!"

Shaw was clearly both surprised and pleased. He strode forward wit