Louis
Seize pendule, and he knew it to be genuine of his own knowledge; he had
bought it.

He dropped the portiere between himself and the clock, and stood in the
inner hall. He had had as much of the drawing-room as was good for his
nerves.

The inner hall was oblong in shape, and measured about twelve feet at
its greatest width. In front of him, as he stood with his back to the
drawing-room, was a closed door, which he knew led into the principal
bedroom of the flat. To his right another heavy portiere divided the
inner from the outer hall. This portiere hung in straight perpendicular
folds. He wondered why the portieres had not been taken down and folded
away.

He decided to penetrate first into the bedroom, partly because he deemed
the bedroom might contain the solution of the enigma, and partly because
his eye had fancied it saw a slight tremor in the portiere leading to
the outer hall. So he stepped stoutly across the space which separated
him from the bedroom door. But he had not reached the door before there
was a loud, sharp explosion, and a panel of the door splintered and
showed a hole, and he thought he heard a faint cry.

A revolver shot!

He did not believe in anything so far-fetched as man-traps and
spring-guns. Hence there must be some person or persons in the flat.
Some unseen intelligence was following him. Some mysterious will had
ordained that he should not enter that bedroom. The shot was a warning.
He guessed from the flight of the splinters and the appearance of the
hole that the mysterious will must be on the other side of the portiere,
but the portiere gave no sign.

What was he to do? He had brought with him no weapon. He had not
anticipated that revolvers would be needed in the exploration of an
empty and forbidden flat. The very definite terrors of the inner hall
seemed to him to surpass the vaguer terrors of the drawing-room, and he
decided to return thither in order to consider quietly what his tactics
should be; if necessary, he could return to the dome for arms and
assistance. But no sooner did he move a foot towards the drawing-room
than another shot sounded. The drawing-room portiere trembled, and
something crashed within the apartment. The mysterious will had ardently
decided that he should go neither back nor forward.

'Who's there? Who's that shooting?' he muttered thickly, and
extinguished his lamp.

He had meant to cry out loud, but, to his intense surprise, his throat