unless the skeleton keys gave her trouble. She had never
used a key of that sort, but--She moved quietly down the hallway, and,
looking quickly about her to assure herself again that she was not
observed, stopped before the door of Room Number Eleven.

A moment she hung there, listening; then she slipped the skeleton keys
from her pocket, and, in the act of inserting one of them tentatively
into the keyhole, she tried the door--and with a little gasp of surprise
returned the keys hurriedly to her pocket. The door was unlocked; it had
even opened an inch already under her hand.

Again she looked around her, a little startled now; and instinctively
her hand in her pocket exchanged the keys for her revolver. But she
saw nothing, heard nothing; and it was certainly dark inside there, and
therefore only logical to conclude that the room was unoccupied.

Reassured, she pushed the door cautiously and noiselessly open, and
stepped inside, and closed the door behind her. She stood still for an
instant, and then the round, white ray of her flashlight went dancing
inquisitively around the office. It was a medium-sized room, far
from ornate in its appointments, bare floored, the furniture of the
cheapest--Perlmer's clientele did not insist on oriental rugs and
mahogany!

Her appraisal of the room, however, was but cursory. She was interested
only in the flat-topped desk in front of her. She stepped quickly around
it--and stopped-and a low cry of dismay came from her as she stared at
the floor. The lower drawer had been completely removed, and now lay
upturned beside the swivel chair, its contents strewn around in all
directions.

And for a moment she stared at the scene, nonplused, discomfited. She
had been so sure that she would be first--and she had not been first.
There was no need to search amongst those papers on the floor. They told
their own story. The ones she wanted were already gone.

In a numbed way, mechanically, she retreated to the door; and, with the
flashlight playing upon it, she noticed for the first time that the
lock had been roughly forced. It was but corroborative of the despoiled
drawer; and, at the same time, the obvious reason why the door had not
been relocked when whoever had come here had gone out again.

Whoever had come here! She could have laughed out hysterically. Was
there any doubt as to who it was? One of Danglar's emissaries; the
Cricket, perhaps-or perhaps even Danglar himself! They had s