oward the end of the hall and remarked with studied
politeness:

"My office is below, as you know. Will you oblige me by following me
there?"

I feared him, for I saw that studiously as he sought to hide his
impressions, he too regarded the moment as one of critical significance.
But I assumed an air of perfect confidence, merely observing as I left
the neighborhood of the front door and the proximity of Jupp:

"I have friends on the outside who are waiting for me; so you must not
keep me too long."

He was bending to take up the lamp from a small table near the basement
stair as I threw out these words in apparent carelessness, and the flash
which shot from under his shaggy brows was thus necessarily heightened
by the glare in which he stood. Yet with all allowances made I marked
him down in my own mind as dangerous, and was correspondingly surprised
when he turned on the top step of the narrow staircase I remembered so
vividly from the experience I have before named, and in the mildest of
accents remarked:

"These stairs are a trifle treacherous. Be careful to grasp the
hand-rail as you come down."

Was the game deeper than I thought? In all my remembrance of him I had
never before seen him look benevolent, and it alarmed me, coming as it
did after the accusation I had made. I felt tempted to make a stand and
demand that the interview be held then and there. For I knew his
subterranean office very well, and how difficult it would be to raise a
cry there which could be heard by any one outside. Still, with a
muttered, "Thank you," I proceeded to follow him down, only stopping
once in the descent to listen for some sound by which I could determine
in which room of the many I knew to be on this floor the little one lay,
on whose behalf I was incurring a possible bullet from the pistol I once
saw lurking amongst bottles and corks in one of the innumerable drawers
of the doctor's table. But all was still around and overhead; too still
for my peace of mind, in which dreadful visions began to rise of a
drugged or dying child, panting out its innocent breath in darkness and
solitude. Yet no. With those thousands to be had for the asking, any man
would be a fool to injure or even seriously to frighten a child upon
whose good condition they depended; much less a miser whose whole heart
was fixed on money.

The clock struck as I put foot on the landing; so much can happen in
twenty minutes when events crowd and the pass