the disordered sitting-room. The outer door had been closed
but not bolted, and what with the tinted light, diffused through the
silken Japanese shade, and the presence of fog in the room, I was
almost tempted to believe myself the victim of a delusion. What I saw
or thought I saw was this:--

A tall screen stood immediately inside the door, and around its end,
like some materialization of the choking mist, glided a lithe, yellow
figure, a slim, crouching figure, wearing a sort of loose robe. An
impression I had of jet-black hair, protruding from beneath a little
cap, of finely chiseled features and great, luminous eyes, then, with
no sound to tell of a door opened or shut, the apparition was gone.

"You saw him, Petrie!--you saw him!" cried Smith.

In three bounds he was across the room, had tossed the screen aside
and thrown open the door. Out he sprang into the yellow haze of the
corridor, tripped, and, uttering a cry of pain, fell sprawling upon
the marble floor. Hot with apprehension I joined him, but he looked
up with a wry smile and began furiously rubbing his left shin.

"A queer trick, Petrie," he said, rising to his feet; "but
nevertheless effective."

He pointed to the object which had occasioned his fall. It was a small
metal chest, evidently of very considerable weight, and it stood
immediately outside the door of Number 14a.

"That was what he came for, sir! That was what he came for! You were
too quick for him!"

Beeton stood behind us, his horror-bright eyes fixed upon the box.

"Eh?" rapped Smith, turning upon him.

"That's what Sir Gregory brought to England," the man ran on almost
hysterically; "that's what he's been guarding this past two weeks,
night and day, crouching over it with a loaded pistol. That's what
cost him his life, sir. He's had no peace, day or night, since he
got it...."

We were inside the room again now, Smith bearing the coffer in his
arms, and still the man ran on:

"He's never slept for more than an hour at a time, that I know of, for
weeks past. Since the day we came here he hasn't spoken to another
living soul, and he's lain there on the floor at night with his head
on that brass box, and sat watching over it all day."

"'Beeton!' he'd cry out, perhaps in the middle of the night--'Beeton--
do you hear that damned woman!' But although I'd begun to think I
could hear something, I believe it was the constant strain working on
my nerves and nothing else at all.