the
Doctor's name, together with an almost invisible pimple that was the
bell, and before those sombre and enigmatic portals I was left to my
fate. For once in a way, I was going to see what was round the corner.

"One leaf of the door opened and remained so for a second before a head
appeared, a head of grey, upstanding hair and a dark, bushy beard. You
don't often meet with doors that open in that fashion at home. You know
the English fashion--six inches and a face peering at you suspiciously,
or a wide fling open and the servant standing right up to you and
blocking the way with a paralyzing stare. On the continent there is the
porter below and the door opens to let you in, not just to see what you
want. So in I walked, the door closed and I found myself in the
ante-room of Doctor West's apartment, faced by Doctor West himself, and
watched by a mummy-case standing close to the wall, a mummy-case painted
with a strange, anxious face. Its gold eyes had luminous whites and
strong black brows. That bizarre curiosity was the key of the Doctor's
furnishing scheme, and it had for me another significance. I knew then
that I had heard of him with some certainty. I connected him at last
with various stories I had vaguely picked up, snatches of conversation
on the bridge-deck or in the mess-room. I recalled the Chief telling me
once of some doctor who had come, years ago, to stay at some hotel and
who had never left it since except to spend a month every year in Egypt.
Great student of mummies, the Chief said. Yes, I remembered it all.
Perhaps, if I had not had Rosa, I might have fastened more securely to
the story in the first place. Now Rosa had brought me to him. I told him
who I was. He nodded and showed me into his front room.

"It is difficult to convey the sense of overwhelming vastness which
oppresses men in such chambers. You might not feel it so. My quarters
are limited, as you may imagine. Even a millionaire-passenger gets no
more than a cottager ashore. And Rebecca's place had small rooms full of
plush furniture and ship-models in bottles and catamarans in
glass-cases, assegais and Japanese junk. Ugly and comfortable. But this
room of Doctor West's was terrifying to me. I couldn't see the ceiling
at all save that, just above where his reading lamp glowed green on an
immense table, there floated some far-off drapery and a plunging knee--a
fresco lost in the gloom. The walls were painted, on stucco, into panels
and