even a
guard-rail at the outside of each flight. Consequently, P. Sybarite
gained the eleventh floor platform very readily.

But there he held up a long instant, dashed to discover his task made
facile rather than obstructed.

The window was wide open, to force whose latch he had thoughtfully
provided himself with a fruit knife from Peter Kenny's buffet. Within
was gloom and stillness absolute--the one rendered the more opaque by
heavy velvet hangings, shutting out the light; the other with a
quality individual and, as P. Sybarite took it, somehow
intimidating--too complete in its promise.

And so for a darkly dubious moment the little man hung back. To his
quick Celtic instinct there seemed to inhere, in that open, dark, and
silent window, something as sinister and repellent as the inscrutable,
soundless menace of a revolver presented to one's head.

Momentarily, indeed, he experienced anew something of that odd terror,
unreasoning and inexcusable, that had assailed him some time since,
outside the hall-door to this abode of enigmatic and uncanny quiet....

But at length, shaking his head impatiently--as if to rid it of its
pestering swarm of fancies--he stepped noiselessly, in his unshod
feet, down through the window, cautiously parted the draperies, and
advanced into darkness so thick that there might as well have been
night outside instead of glowing daybreak.

Then, with eyes becoming accustomed to the change, he made out shapes
and masses that first confirmed Peter's surmise as to the nature of
the room, and next gave him his bearings.

Over across from the window stood a door, its oblong dimly luminous
with light softly shining down the walls of a private hall, from a
point some distance to the left of the opening.

Rounding a dining-table, P. Sybarite stole softly on, and paused,
listening, just within the threshold.

From some uncertain quarter--presumably the lighted room--he could
hear a sound, very slight: so slight that it seemed guarded, but none
the less unmistakable: the hiss of carbonated water squirting from a
syphon into a glass.

Ceasing, a short wait followed and then a faint "_Aah!_" of
satisfaction, with the thump of a glass set down upon some hard
surface.

And at once, before P. Sybarite could by any means reconcile these
noises with the summons at the front door that had been ignored within
the quarter-hour, soft footfalls became audible in the private hall,
shuffling toward the