armoset had disappeared between the
half-opened leaves of a large folding door. Casting the beam of light
ahead of me I followed. I found myself in a long, lofty apartment,
evidently a drawing-room.

Of the quarry I could detect no sign; but the only other door of the
room was closed; therefore, since the creature had entered, it must,
I argued, undoubtedly be concealed somewhere in the apartment.
Flashing the light about to right and left, I presently perceived that
a conservatory (no doubt facing on the square) ran parallel with one
side of the room. French windows gave access to either end of it; and
it was through one of these, which was slightly open, that the
questioning ray had intruded.

I stepped into the conservatory. Linen blinds covered the windows, but
a faint light from outside found access to the bare, tiled apartment.
Ten paces on my right, from an aperture once closed by a square wooden
panel that now lay upon the floor, the marmoset was grimacing at me.

Realizing that the ray of my lamp must be visible through the blinds
from outside, I extinguished it ... and, a moving silhouette against a
faintly luminous square, I could clearly distinguish the marmoset
watching me.

There was a light in the room beyond!

The marmoset disappeared--and I became aware of a faint, incense-like
perfume. Where had I met with it before? Nothing disturbed the silence
of the empty house wherein I stood; yet I hesitated for several seconds
to pursue the chase further. The realization came to me that the hole
in the wall communicated with the conservatory of the corner house in
the square, the house with the lighted windows.

Determined to see the thing through, I discarded my overcoat--and
crawled through the gap. The smell of burning perfume became almost
overpowering, as I stood upright, to find myself almost touching
curtains of some semi-transparent golden fabric draped in the door
between the conservatory and the drawing-room.

Cautiously, inch by inch, I approached my eyes to the slight gap in
the draperies, as, from somewhere in the house below, sounded the
clangor of a brazen gong. Seven times its ominous note boomed out. I
shrank back into my sanctuary; the incense seemed to be stifling me.

CHAPTER XXXII

SHRINE OF SEVEN LAMPS

Never can I forget that nightmare apartment, that efreet's hall. It
was identical in shape with the room of the adjoining house through
which I had come, but its walls wer