e beam of light cast by my lamp. Its
sudden disappearance brought me to my senses and reminded me of my
plain duty. I set off along the passage briskly, arrived at a small,
square yard ... and was just in time to see the ape leap into a
well-like opening before a basement window. I stepped to the brink,
directing the light down into the well.

I saw a collection of rotten leaves, waste paper, and miscellaneous
rubbish--but the marmoset was not visible. Then I perceived that
practically all the glass in the window had been broken. A sound of
shrill chattering reached me from the blackness of the underground
apartment.

Again I hesitated. What did the darkness mask?

The note of a distant motor-horn rose clearly above the vague throbbing
which is the only silence known to the town-dweller.

Gripping the unlighted cigar between my teeth, I placed my bag upon
the ground and dropped into the well before the broken window. To raise
the sash was a simple matter, and, having accomplished it, I inspected
the room within.

The light showed a large kitchen, with torn wall-paper and decorator's
litter strewn about the floor, a whitewash pail in one corner, and
nothing else.

I climbed in, and, taking from my pocket the Browning pistol without
which I had never traveled since the return of the dreadful Chinaman
to England, I crossed to the door, which was ajar, and looked out into
the passage beyond.

Stifling an exclamation, I fell back a step. Two gleaming eyes stared
straightly into mine!

The next moment I had forced a laugh to my lips ... as the marmoset
turned and went gamboling up the stairs. The house was profoundly
silent. I crossed the passage and followed the creature, which now was
proceeding, I thought, with more of a set purpose.

Out into a spacious and deserted hallway it led me, where my cautious
footsteps echoed eerily, and ghostly faces seemed to peer down upon me
from the galleries above. I should have liked to have unbarred the
street door, in order to have opened a safe line of retreat in the
event of its being required, but the marmoset suddenly sprang up the
main stairway at a great speed, and went racing around the gallery
overhead toward the front of the house.

Determined, if possible, to keep the creature in view, I started in
pursuit. Up the uncarpeted stairs I went, and, from the rail of the
landing, looked down into the blackness of the hallway apprehensively.
Nothing stirred below. The m