there with a Hun next door and probably on every side of
you, and no exit this end? You don't know a living soul in Rotterdam and
no one will be a penny the wiser if you vanish off the face of the
earth ... at any rate no one on this side of the water."

Starting to undress, I noticed a little door on the left-hand side of
the bed. I found it opened into a small _cabinet de toilette_, a narrow
slip of a room with a wash-hand stand and a very dirty window covered
with yellow paper. I pulled open this window with great difficulty--it
cannot have been opened for years--and found it gave on to a very small
and deep interior court, just an air shaft round which the house was
built. At the bottom was a tiny paved court not more than five foot
square, entirely isolated save on one side where there was a basement
window with a flight of steps leading down from the court through an
iron grating. From this window a faint yellow streak of light was
visible. The air was damp and chill and horrid odours of a dirty kitchen
were wafted up the shaft. So I closed the window and set about turning
in.

I took off my coat and waistcoat, then bethought me of the mysterious
document I had received from Dicky. Once more I looked at those
enigmatical words:

_O Oak-wood! O Oak-wood_ (for that much was
clear),
_How empty are thy leaves.
_Like Achiles_ (with one "l") _in the tent.
When two people fall out
The third party rejoices._

What did it all mean? Had Francis fallen out with some confederate who,
having had his revenge by denouncing my brother, now took this
extraordinary step to announce his victim's fate to the latter's
friends? "Like Achilles in the tent!" Why not "in _his_ tent"?
Surely ...

A curious choking noise, the sound of a strangled cough, suddenly broke
the profound silence of the house. My heart seemed to stop for a moment.
I hardly dared raise my eyes from the paper which I was conning, leaning
over the table in my shirt and trousers.

The noise continued, a hideous, deep-throated gurgling. Then I heard a
faint foot-fall in the corridor without.

I raised my eyes to the door.

Someone or something was scratching the panels, furiously, frantically.

The door-knob was rattled loudly. The noise broke in raucously upon that
horrid gurgling sound without. It snapped the spell that bound me.

I moved resolutely towards the door. Even as I stepped forward the
gurgling resolved itself into a strangled cry.

"Ach!