dining-room.

Instinctively the little man drew back (regretful now that he had
yielded to Peter's prejudice against loaded pistols) retreating
sideways along the wall until he had put the bulk of a massive buffet
between him and the door; and, in the small space between that article
of furniture and the corner of the room, waited with every nerve taut
and muscle tense, in full anticipation of incontinent detection.

In line with these apprehensions, the footsteps came no further than
the dining-room door; then died out for what seemed full two
minutes--a pause as illegible to his understanding as their manifest
stealth.

Why need Shaynon take such elaborate precautions against noises in his
own lodgings?

Suddenly, and more confidently, the footfalls turned into the
dining-room; and without glance right or left a man strode directly to
the open window. There for an instant he delayed with an eye to the
crack between the curtains; then, reassured, thrust one aside and
stepped into the embrasure, there to linger with his head out of the
window, intently reconnoitering, long enough to enable P. Sybarite to
make an amazing discovery: the man was not Bayard Shaynon.

In silhouette against the light, his slight and supple form was
unmistakable to one who had seen it before, even though his face was
disfigured by a scant black visor across his eyes and the bridge of
his nose.

He was Red November.

[Illustration: He was Red November.]

What P. Sybarite would have done had he been armed is problematical.
What he did was remain moveless, even as he was breathless and
powerless, but for his naked hands, either for offence or defence. For
that November was armed was as unquestionable as his mastery of the
long-barrelled revolver of blue steel (favoured by gunmen of the
underworld) which he held at poise all the while he carefully surveyed
his line of retreat.

At length, releasing the curtain, the gang leader hopped lightly out
upon the grating, and disappeared.

In another breath P. Sybarite himself was at the window. A single
glance through the curtains showed the grating untenanted; and boldly
poking his head forth, he looked down to see the figure of the gunman,
foreshortened unrecognisably, moving down the iron tangle already
several flights below, singularly resembling a spider in some
extraordinary web.

Incontinently, the little man ran back through the dining-room and
down the private hall, abandoning eve