"What is it?"

"Just a moment," came out of the night. "Hold the wire."

There was a pause in which it occurred to him that a little light would
be a grateful thing. He groped for his desk-lamp, found it and scorched
his fingers slightly on its metal reflector. He had switched on the
light and said "Damn!" mechanically before he reflected that the said
metal reflector had no right to be hot unless the light had been burning
very recently.

As this thought penetrated his consciousness, the telephone waxed
eloquent.

"Hello!" called a voice. "Is that you, Staff?"

"Why!" he exclaimed in surprise--"yes, Alison!"

"Are you alone?"

"Yes," he said. "What is it?"

"I just wanted to know," returned the girl at the other end of the wire.
"I'm coming to see you."

"What--now?"

"Of course, silly."

"But why--this time of night--it doesn't seem--"

"Oh, I've got something most important to say to you--very important
indeed. It won't keep. I'll be there in five minutes. Listen for the
taxi--will you, like a dear boy?--and come down and open the door for
me. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," he returned automatically, and hung up the receiver.

What on earth could _she_ be wanting, that could have turned up so
unexpectedly in the half-hour since he had left her and that wouldn't
keep till morning?

Abruptly he became aware that the air in the room was stiflingly close.
And he had left the windows open when he went out; he knew that he
wasn't mistaken about that; and now they were closed, the shades drawn
tight!

This considered in connection with the open door that had been locked,
and the heated desk-lamp that should have been cold, he couldn't avoid
the conclusion that somebody had been in his rooms, an unlawful
trespasser, just a few minutes before he came in--possibly the very man
who had rushed past him in such violent haste at the front door.

He jumped up and turned on all the lights in the room. A first, hasty
glance about showed him nothing as it had not been when he had left six
hours or so ago--aside from the front windows, of course. Mechanically,
thinking hard and fast, he went to these latter and opened them wide.

The possibility that the intruder might still be in the rooms--in his
bedroom, for instance--popped into his head, and he went hurriedly to
investigate. But there wasn't anybody in the back-room or the
bath-room.

Perplexed, he examined the rear windows. They were closed and locked, as
whe