ust go at once. But Indiman restrained me.

"Yes, that is precisely what I want you to do, only let us first
understand the situation thoroughly. I intend remaining here during the
progress of the investigation, and if anything should happen--"

"What do you mean?"

"Pleasant rooms, aren't they?" and he looked about him approvingly.
"And yet three men have been found sitting dead in the particular chair
that I am now occupying."

I only stared at him.

"No marks of violence," continued Indiman. "Nothing to indicate foul
play; nothing, mind you. 'Dead by the visitation of God,' according to
the coroner, but I should call it an 'adjustment of averages.' That is
a felicitous phrase. I got my facts, by-the-way, from the janitor. He
is rather proud of the affair Barowsky, as we may call it."

"A monster, indeed!" I exclaimed, warmly.

"Oh, we mustn't misjudge our good Dr. Magnus," said Indiman,
indulgently. "I used the word 'monster' in a purely psychological
sense. You can't call such a being immoral; he is simply unmoral."

"Not even a criminal lunatic."

"Certainly not. But I acknowledge that society would be justified in
protecting itself from such a creature. And it will."

"But why should you remain here, exposed to danger?"

"My dear Thorp, I want to play the game. I'm sure it's one worthy of my
best attention."

We argued it out for an hour or more, but Indiman was not to be moved
from his position. So it came back to his original proposition. I was
to take up the search on the outside for the Lady Allegra, and Indiman
was to hold the fort at Nos. 13-15 Barowsky Chambers. I rose to go.

"You don't need these, do you?" he asked, a little doubtfully, picking
up one of the phonographic cylinders. I shook my head. As though I
could have forgotten the smallest inflection of that voice! So we
parted.

It had resolved itself into the needle in a hay-stack, after all. Where
was I to look and for what? A voice! "Vox et preterea nihil," to quote
again that beloved Vergilian line. To the unprejudiced mind it would
seem hopeless enough, and yet I never doubted for an instant but that I
should find her. If a man is sure that the world holds the one woman
intended for him he may be equally confident that their paths will
somewhere, somehow, sometime intersect.

It was the middle of the musical season, and I attended everything from
grand opera to music-hall. For the first and most obvious procedure was
to assume