r alias. So, by way
of possessing him with the idea that I knew all about him, I determined to
ask for him as Mirsky before handing over the letter addressed to him as
Hunter. A little bluff of that sort is invaluable at the right time. At
the top floor back I stopped at the door and tried to open it at once, but
it was locked. I could hear somebody scuttling about within, as though
carrying things about, and I knocked again. In a little while the door
opened about a foot, and there stood Mr. Hunter--or Mirsky, as you
like--the man who, in the character of a traveler in steam-packing, came
here twice to-day. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and cuddled something
under his arm, hastily covered with a spotted pocket-handkerchief.

"'I have called to see M. Mirsky," I said, 'with a confidential
letter----'

"'Oh, yas, yas,' he answered hastily; 'I know--I know. Excuse me one
minute.' And he rushed off down-stairs with his parcel.

"Here was a noble chance. For a moment I thought of following him, in case
there might be something interesting in the parcel. But I had to decide in
a moment, and I decided on trying the room. I slipped inside the door,
and, finding the key on the inside, locked it. It was a confused sort of
room, with a little iron bedstead in one corner and a sort of rough
boarded inclosure in another. This I rightly conjectured to be the
photographic dark-room, and made for it at once.

"There was plenty of light within when the door was left open, and I made
at once for the drying-rack that was fastened over the sink. There were a
number of negatives in it, and I began hastily examining them one after
another. In the middle of this our friend Mirsky returned and tried the
door. He rattled violently at the handle and pushed. Then he called.

"At this moment I had come upon the first of the negatives you have just
smashed. The fixing and washing had evidently only lately been completed,
and the negative was drying on the rack. I seized it, of course, and the
others which stood by it.

"'Who are you, there, inside?' Mirsky shouted indignantly from the
landing. 'Why for you go in my room like that? Open this door at once, or
I call the police!'

"I took no notice. I had got the full number of negatives, one for each
drawing, but I was not by any means sure that he had not taken an extra
set; so I went on hunting down the rack. There were no more, so I set to
work to turn out all the undeveloped plates. It was