are about to enter upon new duties. I will make your position clear
to you. Whilst you do your work, and keep yourself to yourself, you are
in no danger; but one indiscretion--just one--apart from what it may
mean for others, will mean, for YOU, immediate arrest as accessory to a
murder!"

Soames shuddered, coldly.

"You can rely upon me, Mr. Gianapolis," he protested, "to do absolutely
what you wish--absolutely. I am a ruined man, and I know it--I know it.
My only hope is that you will give me a chance."...

"You shall have every chance, Soames," replied Gianapolis--"every
chance."

XV

CAVE OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON

When the car stopped at the end of a short drive, Soames had not the
slightest idea of his whereabouts. The blinds at the window of the
limousine had been lowered during the whole journey, and now he
descended from the step of the car on to the step of a doorway. He was
in some kind of roofed-in courtyard, only illuminated by the headlamps
of the car. Mr. Gianapolis pushed him forward, and, as the door was
closed, he heard the gear of the car reversed; then--silence fell.

"My grip!" he began, nervously.

"It will be placed in your room, Soames."

The voice of the Greek answered him from the darkness.

Guided by the hand of Gianapolis, he passed on and descended a flight of
stone steps. Ahead of him a light shone out beneath a door, and, as he
stumbled on the steps, the door was thrown suddenly open.

He found himself looking into a long, narrow apartment.... He pulled up
short with a smothered, gasping cry.

It was a cavern!--but a cavern the like of which he had never seen,
never imagined. The walls had the appearance of being rough-hewn
from virgin rock--from black rock--from rock black as the rocks of
Shellal--black as the gates of Erebus.

Placed at regular intervals along the frowning walls, to right and left,
were spiral, slender pillars, gilded and gleaming. They supported an
archwork of fancifully carven wood, which curved gently outward to the
center of the ceiling, forming, by conjunction with a similar, opposite
curve, a pointed arch.

In niches of the wall were a number of grotesque Chinese idols. The
floor was jet black and polished like ebony. Several tiger-skin rugs
were strewn about it. But, dominating the strange place, in the center
of the floor stood an ivory pedestal, supporting a golden dragon of
exquisite workmanship; and before it, as before a shrine, an enormo