entrance of another into a room that had been deserted save for
himself. Another person would not have felt that difference at all, but
Keane had developed his psychic perceptions as ordinary men exercise and
develop their biceps.

With an inarticulate cry he whirled, and leaped far to the side.

[Illustration: "The wall behind the spot where he had been
disappeared."]

The wall behind the spot where he had been disappeared as the gold-link
bag continued to point that way. The woman, snarling like a tigress,
swung her bag toward Keane in his new position. But Keane was not
waiting. He sprang for her. His hand got her wrist and wrenched to get
the gold-link purse away from her. It turned toward her, back again
toward him, with the little bar moving as her hand was constricted over
the thing in the purse.

It was a woman's body he struggled with. But there was strength in the
fragile flesh beyond the strength of any woman! It took all his steely
power to tear from her grasp the gold-link purse with its enclosed
device. As he got it, he heard the woman's shrill cry of pain and
terror, felt her sag in his arms. And then he heard many voices and
stared around like a sleepwalker who has waked in a spot different from
that in which he had begun his sleep--a comparison so exact that for one
wild moment he thought it must be true!

He was in a familiar room.... Yes, Doctor Grays' room at the Blue Bay
Hotel.

The people around him were familiar.... There was Gest. There were
Kroner and Doctor Grays, and--Beatrice. There were the Blue Bay chief of
police, and two men.

But the limp feminine form he held in his arms was Madame Sin, the fury
he had been fighting in Chichester's library! And in his hand was still
the gold link bag he had wrenched from her!

The woman in his arms stirred. She looked blankly up at him, stared
around. A cry came from her lips.

"Where--am I? Who are you all? What are you doing in my room? But this
isn't my room!"

Her face was different, younger-looking, less exotic. She wasn't Madame
Sin; she was a frightened, puzzled girl.

Keane's brain had slipped back into gear, and into comprehension of what
had happened.

"Where do you think you are?" he said gently. "And what is your name?"

"I'm Sylvia Crane," she said. "And I'm in a New York hotel room. At
least I was the last I knew, when I opened the door and the man in the
red mask came in...."

She buried her face in her hands. "After