om windows.
They were electric lights by their great power, and, save for the hall
and dining-room, the rest of the house lay in utter darkness. The cycle
bell let off an approving staccato from behind the blankety fog as Steel
pulled up.

There was nothing abnormal about the house, nothing that struck the
adventurer's eye beyond the extraordinary vividness of the crimson
blind. The two side-windows of the big bay were evidently shuttered,
but the large centre gleamed like a flood of scarlet overlaid with a
silken sheen. Far across the pavement the ruby track struck into the
heart of the fog.

"Vivid note," Steel murmured. "I shall remember that impression."

He was destined never to forget it, but it was only one note in the gamut
of adventure now. With a firm step he walked up the marble flight and
turned the handle. It felt dirty and rusty to the touch. Evidently the
servants were neglectful, or they were employed by people who had small
regard for outward appearances.

The door opened noiselessly, and Steel closed it behind him. A Moorish
lantern cast a brilliant flood of light upon a crimson carpet, a chair,
and an empty oak umbrella-stand. Beyond this there was no atom of
furniture in the hall. It was impossible to see beyond the dining-room
door, for a heavy red velvet curtain was drawn across. David's first
impression was the amazing stillness of the place. It gave him a queer
feeling that a murder had been committed there, and that everybody had
fled, leaving the corpse behind. As David coughed away the lump in his
throat the cough sounded strangely hollow.

He passed into the dining-room and looked eagerly about him. The room was
handsomely furnished, if a little conventional--a big mahogany table in
the centre, rows of mahogany chairs upholstered in morocco, fine modern
prints, most of them artist's proofs, on the walls. A big marble clock,
flanked by a pair of vases, stood on the mantelshelf. There were a large
number of blue vases on the sideboard. The red distemper had faded to a
pale pink in places.

"Tottenham Court Road," Steel smiled to himself. "Modern, solid,
expensive, but decidedly inartistic. Ginger jars fourteen guineas a pair,
worth about as many pence. Moneyed people, solid and respectable, of the
middle class. What brings them playing at mystery like this?"

The room was most brilliantly lighted both from overhead and from the
walls. On the shining desert of the dining-table lay a smal