ce like yours in New York. Where are you?"

"In prison."

"No! Prison? For the Lord's sake!"

"No; for conventionality's sake. Not legally, you understand. Not
even an adventure as exciting as that has happened to me. But
constructively in jail. _De facto_, as it were. It's all the same
thing."

"Up there in that observatory thing of yours, are you?" asked
Bohannan.

"Yes; and I want to see you."

"When?"

"At once! As soon as you can get over here in a taxi, from that
incredibly stupid club of yours. You can get to _Niss'rosh_ even
though it's after seven. Take the regular elevator to the forty-first
floor, and I'll have Rrisa meet you and bring you up here in the
special.

"That's a concession, isn't it? The sealed gates that no one else ever
passes, at night, are opened to you. It's very important. Be here in
fifteen minutes you say? First-rate! Don't fail me. Good-bye!"

He was smiling a little now as he pressed the button again and rang
off. He put the faun's head back on the table, got up and stretched
his vigorous arms.

"By Allah!" he exclaimed, new notes in his voice. "What if--what if it
_could_ be, after all?"

He turned to the wall, laid his hand on an ivory plate flush with the
surface and pressed slightly. In silent unison, heavy gold-embroidered
draperies slid across every window. As these draperies closed the
apertures, light gushed from every angle and cornice. No specific
source of illumination seemed visible; but the room bathed itself in
soft, clear radiance with a certain restful greenish tinge, throwing
no shadows, pure as the day itself.

The man pulled open a drawer in the table and silently gazed down at
several little boxes within. He opened some. From one, on a bed of
purple satin, the Croix de Guerre, with a palm, gleamed up at him.
Another disclosed an "M.M.," a Medaille Militaire. A third showed him
the "D.F.C.," or Distinguished Flying Cross. Still another contained
aviator's insignia in the form of a double pair of wings. The Master
smiled, and closed the boxes, then the drawer.

"After these," he mused, "dead inaction? Not for me!"

His dark eyes were shining with eagerness as he walked to a door
beside that through which the Arab had entered. He swung it wide,
disclosing an ample closet, likewise inundated with light. There
hung a war-worn aviator's uniform of leather, gauntlets, a sheepskin
jacket, a helmet, resistal goggles, a cartridge-belt still half full
of amm