--you dirty, blackmailing German crook! I've got your
number! You're the 'Watcher'!--you murderous rat! You're afraid to
shoot!"

It was plain that the spectacled man had not discounted anything of
this sort--plain now, to Barres, that if, indeed, murder actually had
been meant, it was not his own murder that had been planned with that
big, blunt, silver-plated pistol, now wavering wildly before his
eyes.

"I blow your face off!" whispered the stranger, beginning to back away
again, and ghastly pale.

"Keep out of thiss! I am not looking for you. Get you back; step once
again inside that door away!----"

But Barres had already jumped for him, had almost caught him, was
reaching for him--when the man hurled the pistol straight at his face.
The terrific impact of the heavy weapon striking him between the eyes
dazed him; he stumbled sideways, colliding with the wall, and he
reeled around there a second.

But that second's leeway was enough for the bespectacled stranger. He
turned and ran like a deer. And when Barres reached the staircase the
whitewashed hall below was still echoing with the slam of the street
grille.

Nevertheless, he hurried down, but found the desk-chair empty and
Soane nowhere visible, and continued on to the outer door, more or
less confused by the terrific blow on the head.

Of course the bespectacled man had disappeared amid the noonday
foot-farers now crowding both sidewalks east and west, on their way to
lunch.

Barres walked slowly back to the desk, still dazed, but now thoroughly
enraged and painfully conscious of a heavy swelling where the blow had
fallen on his forehead.

In the superintendent's quarters he found Soane, evidently just
awakened after a sodden night at Grogan's, trying to dress.

Barres said:

"There is nobody at the desk. Either you or Miss Kurtz should be on
duty. That is the rule. Now, I'm going to tell you something: If I
ever again find that desk without anybody behind it, I shall go to the
owners of this building and tell them what sort of superintendent you
are! And maybe I'll tell the police, also!"

"Arrah, then, Misther Barres----"

"That's all!" said Barres, turning on his heel. "Anything more from
you and you'll find yourself in trouble!"

And he went up stairs.

The lumpy pistol still lay there in the corridor; he picked it up and
took it into the studio. The weapon was fully loaded. It seemed to be
of some foreign make--German or Austrian, he j