by the front door or down
the aiery steps; and you can't do neither without coming past Blinders
at the square's entrance, and that," finished Miss Greeb triumphantly,
"these visitors don't do."

"They may have come into the square during the day, when Blinders was
not on duty."

"No, sir," said Miss Greeb, ready for this objection. "I thought of that
myself, and as my duty to the square I have inquired--that I have. On
two occasions I've asked the day policeman, and he says no one passed."

"Then," said Lucian, rather puzzled, "Mr. Berwin cannot live alone in
the house."

"Begging your pardon, I'm sure," cried the pertinacious woman, "but he
does. Mrs. Kebby has been all over the house, and there isn't another
soul in it. No, Mr. Denzil, take it what way you will, there's
something that ain't right about Mr. Berwin--if that's his real name,
which I don't believe it is."

"Why, Miss Greeb?"

"Just because I don't," replied the landlady, with feminine logic. "And
if you think of having anything to do with this mystery, Mr. Denzil, I
beg of you not to, else you may come to something as is too terrible to
consider--that you may."

"Such as--"

"Oh, I don't know," cried Miss Greeb, tossing her head and gliding
towards the door. "It ain't for me to say what I think. I am the last
person in the world to meddle with what don't concern me--that I am."
And thus ending the conversation, Miss Greeb vanished, with significant
look and pursed-up lips.

The reason of this last speech and rapid retreat lay in the fact that
Miss Greeb could bring no tangible charge against her opposite
neighbour; and therefore hinted at his complicity in all kinds of
horrors, which she was quite unable to define save in terms more or less
vague.

Lucian dismissed such hints of criminality from his mind as the outcome
of Miss Greeb's very lively imagination; yet, even though he reduced her
communications to bare facts, he could not but acknowledge that there
was something queer about Mr. Berwin and his mode of life. The man's
self-pity and self-condemnation; his hints that certain people wished
to do him harm; the curious episode of the shadows on the blind--these
things engaged the curiosity of Denzil in no ordinary degree; and he
could not but admit to himself that it would greatly ease his mind to
arrive at some reasonable explanation of Berwin's eccentricities.

Nevertheless, he held that he had no right to pry into the secrets of
t