letter-files. Yet, bare as it was, it looked familiar. There was the
fireplace, with its charred logs. There, yes, there were the splinters
of the glass that had protected Doris's photograph. And, final
convincing evidence, there, forgotten in a corner, was the worn bedroom
slipper he had noticed under the couch the night before.

With eyes still bewildered, still incredulous, he stared around the
empty room. Before him yawned an open door, showing an uninviting vista
of dingy hall. He stepped across its threshold, and looked down the
winding passage of the night before. But why hadn't he seen the door? He
moved back into the empty room. A glance explained the little mystery.
The room had been freshly papered, door and all. The surface of the door
had been made level with the wall. When it was closed there was no
apparent break in the pattern of the wall-paper.

If there had been a chair in the room, young Mr. Devon would have sat
down at this point. His body wanted to sit down. In fact, it almost
insisted upon doing so. But just as he was relaxing in utter
bewilderment, he received another gentle shock. Above the old-fashioned
mantel was a narrow, set-in mirror, and in this mirror Laurie caught a
glimpse of the features of a disheveled young ruffian, staring fixedly
at him. He had time to stiffen perceptibly over this vision before he
realized that the disheveled ruffian was himself, a coatless, collarless
self, with shirt torn open, cuffs torn off, hair on end, features
battered and dirty, and bits of straw clinging to what was left of his
clothing.

For a long moment Laurie gazed at the figure in the glass, and as he
gazed his mingled emotions shook down into connected thought. Yes, there
_had_ been a dandy fight in this room last night, and he had the
satisfaction of knowing that his two opponents must have come out of it
as disheveled as himself. He had "had them going." Beyond doubt he could
have handled them both but for their infernal chloroform. Again he
recalled, with pleasure, the feeling of Shaw's thick, slippery neck as
it choked and writhed under the grip of his fingers. Incidentally he had
landed two blows on the secretary's jaw, sending him first into a corner
and the next time to the floor. It was soon after the second blow that
the episode of the chloroform occurred.

Straightening up, he began the hurried and elemental toilet which was
all the conditions permitted. He removed the pieces of straw