out! Then from the landing came a smart insistent knock
upon the door, and within the flat a bell woke and shrilled
vociferously. He turned; the room that was always to be ready was at
his side, and he fled on tiptoe into its darkness.

He got himself clear of the door, moving with extended hands across
its creaking parquet till he touched the cold smoothness of the tiled
stove, and freezing to immobility as he heard the kitchen door open.
Quick footsteps advanced along the passage; to him, checking, his
breath in the dark, listening with every nerve taut, it was as though
he saw her, the serene poise of her body as she walked, the pathetic
confidence of her high-held head, so distinctive and personal was
even the noise of her tread on the boards. Presently, when she had
sent the policeman away, he would see her and make her the gift of
his request and watch her face as she received it from him.

The latch clicked back under her hand, and she was standing in the
entry, confronting the policeman and his backing of citizens.

"Yes?" he heard her say, with a note of surprise at the sight of
them. "Yes? What is it?"

The policeman's voice, with the official rasp in it, answered,
spitting facts as brief as curses. "Man evading arrest aggravated
assault believed to be a certain American apparently escaped this
direction." It was like a telegram talking. Then, from his escort, a
corroborating gabble.

He could imagine her look of rather puzzled eagerness. "An American?"
she exclaimed. Then, as she realized it and its possibilities
possibly also the fact that already when an American was sought for
it was to her door that they came "oh!"

"Require you to produce him," injected the policeman, "if here! He is
here yes?"

"No," she answered; "nobody has come here yet."

There seemed to be a check at that; the effect of her, standing in
the doorway, made insistence difficult. The loud clock ticked on,
and, at the background of the whole affair, the citizens on the
landing maintained a subdued and unremarked murmur among themselves.

"He came this way," observed the policeman tenaciously. "He was seen
to pass the next house." And a voice chimed in, melancholy,
plaintive, evidently the voice of the dvornik who had been discovered
absent from his post: "Yes, I saw him."

"Well," Miss Pilgrim seemed a little at a loss. "He's not here." She
paused. "I have two rooms here," she added; "this" she must be
pointing to the dark