awing-room. I decided that
the adventure had gone quite far enough, and if I had been able to
explain to the Russian that I had lost my way in the fog, and only
wanted to get back into the street again, I would have left the house on
the instant.

"Of course, when I first rang the bell of the house I had no other
expectation than that it would be answered by a parlor-maid who would
direct me on my way. I certainly could not then foresee that I would
disturb a Russian princess in her boudoir, or that I might be thrown out
by her athletic bodyguard. Still, I thought I ought not now to leave
the house without making some apology, and, if the worst should come,
I could show my card. They could hardly believe that a member of an
Embassy had any designs upon the hat-rack.

"The room in which I stood was dimly lighted, but I could see that, like
the hall, it was hung with heavy Persian rugs. The corners were filled
with palms, and there was the unmistakable odor in the air of Russian
cigarettes, and strange, dry scents that carried me back to the bazaars
of Vladivostock. Near the front windows was a grand piano, and at the
other end of the room a heavily carved screen of some black wood,
picked out with ivory. The screen was overhung with a canopy of silken
draperies, and formed a sort of alcove. In front of the alcove was
spread the white skin of a polar bear, and set on that was one of those
low Turkish coffee tables. It held a lighted spirit-lamp and two gold
coffee cups. I had heard no movement from above stairs, and it must have
been fully three minutes that I stood waiting, noting these details of
the room and wondering at the delay, and at the strange silence.

"And then, suddenly, as my eye grew more used to the half-light, I saw,
projecting from behind the screen as though it were stretched along the
back of a divan, the hand of a man and the lower part of his arm. I
was as startled as though I had come across a footprint on a deserted
island. Evidently the man had been sitting there since I had come into
the room, even since I had entered the house, and he had heard the
servant knocking upon the door. Why he had not declared himself I could
not understand, but I supposed that possibly he was a guest, with no
reason to interest himself in the Princess's other visitors, or perhaps,
for some reason, he did not wish to be observed. I could see nothing of
him except his hand, but I had an unpleasant feeling that he had