d his wrist. "Wait!" she said. "We'll have a light presently."

Mallalieu stood where she had placed him, impatient of everything, but
feeling powerless to move. He heard Miss Pett move about; he heard the
drawing to and barring of shutters, the swish of curtains being pulled
together; then the spurt and glare of a match--in its feeble flame he
saw Miss Pett's queer countenance, framed in an odd-shaped,
old-fashioned poke bonnet, bending towards a lamp. In the gradually
increasing light of that lamp Mallalieu looked anxiously around him.

He was in a little room which was half-parlour, half bed-room. There was
a camp bed in one corner; there was an ancient knee-hole writing desk
under the window across which the big curtains had been drawn; there
were a couple of easy-chairs on either side of the hearth. There were
books and papers on a shelf; there were pictures and cartoons on the
walls. Mallalieu took a hasty glance at those unusual ornaments and
hated them: they were pictures of famous judges in their robes, and of
great criminal counsel in their wigs--and over the chimney-piece, framed
in black wood, was an old broad-sheet, printed in big, queer-shaped
letters: Mallalieu's hasty glance caught the staring headline--_Dying
Speech and Confession of the Famous Murderer_....

"This was Kitely's snug," remarked Miss Pett calmly, as she turned up
the lamp to the full. "He slept in that bed, studied at that desk,
and smoked his pipe in that chair. He called it his
sanctum-something-or-other--I don't know no Latin. But it's a nice room,
and it's comfortable, or will be when I put a fire in that grate, and
it'll do very well for you until you can move. Sit you down--would you
like a drop of good whisky, now?"

Mallalieu sat down and stared his hardest at Miss Pett. He felt himself
becoming more confused and puzzled than ever.

"Look here, missis!" he said suddenly. "Let's get a clear idea about
things. You say you can keep me safe here until I can get away. How do
you know I shall be safe?"

"Because I'll take good care that you are," answered Miss Pett. "There's
nobody can get into this house without my permission, and before I let
anybody in, no matter with what warrants or such-like they carried, I'd
see that you were out of it before they crossed the threshold. I'm no
fool, I can tell you, Mr. Mallalieu, and if you trust me----"

"I've no choice, so it seems," remarked Mallalieu, grimly. "You've got
me! And now, h