further. He must show her that he could not be dismissed in that
summary fashion. He mounted the two dirty steps, and rang the bell in a
determined manner. He heard it tinkle distantly.

She was divine, adorable, marvellous, and far beyond the deserts of any
man; but she had not shaken hands with him, and she had treated him as
she might have treated one of the shopwalkers. Moreover, the question of
to-morrow had to be decided.

There was no answer to the bell, and he rang again, with an increase of
energy.

Then he perceived through the fanlight an illumination in the hall. The
door opened cautiously, as such doors always do open, and a middle-aged
man in a dressing-gown stood before him. In the background he descried a
small table with a candle on it, and the foul, polished walls of the
narrow lobby--a representative London lodging-house.

'I want to see Mrs. Tudor,' said Hugo.

'Well, she ain't in at the moment,' replied the man.

'Excuse me,' Hugo corrected him, 'I saw her enter a minute ago with her
latchkey.'

'No, you didn't,' the man persisted. 'I'm the landlord of this house,
and I've been in my room at the back, and nobody's come in this last
half-hour, for I can see the 'all and the stairs as I sits in my chair.'

'Wait a moment,' said Hugo; and he retreated to the kerb, in the
expectation of being able to descry Camilla's light in the fifth story.

'Oh, you can look,' the landlord observed loftily, divining his
intention; 'I warrant there's no light there.'

And there was not.

'Perhaps you'll call again,' said the landlord suavely.

'I suppose you haven't got a room to let?' Hugo demanded, fumbling
about in his brain for a plan to meet this swift crisis.

'I can't tell you till my wife comes home.'

'And when will that be?'

'That'll be to-morrow.'

The door was banged to. Hugo rang again, wrathfully, but the door
remained obstinate.

CHAPTER XXV

CHLOROFORM

'Come in,' said Simon grandly, in response to a knock.

He was seated in his master's chair in the dome, which was lit as though
for a fete. The clock showed the hour of nine.

Albert entered.

'Oh, it's you, is it?' exclaimed Albert. 'Where's the governor?'

'I don't know where he is. He was in his office at something to seven,
having an interview with Mrs. Tudor. Since then--'

Simon raised his eyebrows, and Albert expressed a similar sentiment by
means of a whistle.

'Then, you've been telephoning on your own