olitary occupation for a week.

"Feel better now?" he asked anxiously.

I reached for my tumbler and blew a cloud of smoke into the air.
I could hear Soar's footsteps as he made the round of bolts and
bars, testing each anxiously.

"Thanks, Hilton," I said. "I'm quite all right. You are naturally
wondering what the devil it all means? Well, then, I wired you
from Euston that I was coming by the 6:55."

"H-- Post Office shuts at 7. I shall get your wire in the morning!"

"That explains your failing to meet me. Now for my explanation!"

"Surrounding this house at the present moment," I continued, "are
members of an Eastern organization--the Hashishin, founded in
Khorassan in the eleventh century and flourishing to-day!"

"Do you mean it, Cavanagh?"

"I do! One Hassan of Aleppo is the present Sheikh of the order,
and he has come to England, bringing a fiendish company in his train,
in pursuit of the sacred slipper of Mohammed, which was stolen by
the late Professor Deeping---"

"Surely I have read something about this?"

"Probably. Deeping was murdered by Hassan! The slipper was placed
in the Antiquarian Museum--"

"From which it was stolen again!"

"Correct--by Earl Dexter, America's foremost crook! But the real
facts have never got into print. I am the only pressman who knows
them, and I have good reason for keeping my knowledge to myself!
Dexter is dead (I believe I saw his ghost to-day). But although,
to the best of my knowledge, the accursed slipper is in the hands
of Hassan and Company, I have been watched since I left Euston,
and on my way to 'Uplands' my life was attempted!"

"For God's sake, why?"

"I cannot surmise, Hilton. Deeping, for certain reasons that are
irrelevant at the moment, left the keys of the case at the Museum
in my perpetual keeping--but the case was rifled a second time--"

"I read of it!"

"And the keys were stolen from me. I am utterly at a loss to
understand why the Hashishin--for it is members of that awful
organization who, without a doubt, surround this house at the
present moment--should seek my life. Hilton, I have brought
trouble with me!"

"It's almost incredible!" said Hilton, staring at me. "Why do
these people pursue you?"

Ere I had time to reply Soar entered, arrayed, as was Hilton, in
his night attire. Soar was an ex-dragoon and a model man.

"Everything fast, sir," he reported; "but from the window of the
bedroom over here--the room I go