and as the retreating footsteps
of the servant died away, complete silence--that peculiar silence
which comes with fog--descended once more upon the upper part of the
New Louvre Hotel.

CHAPTER XII

THE VISITANT

That first hour of watching, waiting, and listening in the lonely
quietude passed drearily; and with the passage of every quarter--
signalized by London's muffled clocks--my mood became increasingly
morbid. I peopled the silent rooms opening out of that wherein I sat,
with stealthy, murderous figures; my imagination painted hideous
yellow faces upon the draperies, twitching yellow hands protruding
from this crevice and that. A score of times I started nervously,
thinking I heard the pad of bare feet upon the floor behind me, the
suppressed breathing of some deathly approach.

Since nothing occurred to justify these tremors, this apprehensive
mood passed; I realized that I was growing cramped and stiff, that
unconsciously I had been sitting with my muscles nervously tensed.
The window was open a foot or so at the top and the blind was drawn;
but so accustomed were my eyes now to peering through the darkness,
that I could plainly discern the yellow oblong of the window, and
though very vaguely, some of the appointments of the room--the
Chesterfield against one wall, the lamp-shade above my head, the
table with the Tulun-Nur box upon it.

There was fog in the room, and it was growing damply chill, for we
had extinguished the electric heater some hours before. Very few
sounds penetrated from outside. Twice or perhaps thrice people passed
along the corridor, going to their rooms; but, as I knew, the greater
number of the rooms along that corridor were unoccupied.

From the Embankment far below me, and from the river, faint noises
came at long intervals it is true; the muffled hooting of motors, and
yet fainter ringing of bells. Fog signals boomed distantly, and train
whistles shrieked, remote and unreal. I determined to enter my bedroom,
and, risking any sound which I might make, to lie down upon the bed.

I rose carefully and carried this plan into execution. I would have
given much for a smoke, although my throat was parched; and almost any
drink would have been nectar. But although my hopes (or my fears) of
an intruder had left me, I determined to stick to the rules of the
game as laid down. Therefore I neither smoked nor drank, but carefully
extended my weary limbs upon the coverlet, and telling m