buyer, he
promised to make up his mind and return with his decision the next
morning. He knew that sharp and angry eyes followed him from the shop.

He had a feeling that the darkened place had become active as soon as he
had turned his back.

He walked slowly to the corner, studying the houses on either side of
the shop. The one to the right was a cheap boarding house. The one on
the other side was evidently a private dwelling.

At the nearest hardware store he bought an auger and a screwdriver. Then
he entered the alley that bisected the block, and, counting the houses,
knocked at the kitchen door of the one to the right of the Oriental
shop. The servant who admitted him verified his hazard. At this hour the
occupants were at work. She was, for the present, alone in the house.

Garth showed her his badge, warned her to make no noise, and to stay
close to him. The girl, frightened and unable to comprehend, followed
him into the basement. He paced from the front of the house along the
wall to a point which, according to his calculations, was opposite the
hidden portion of the shop. He glanced up then with satisfaction.
Against a thin and antiquated partition was suspended one of those heavy
and unwieldy gas meters which are found only in very old buildings.

Garth drew up a table, climbed upon it, and examined the thick screws
which held the contrivance in place. With his screwdriver he commenced
noiselessly to remove one of these. He thought it likely that the screw
hole would go all the way through. If it did not, his auger would
complete the journey. He instructed the girl to draw the blinds and
close the door so that the room would be darker. He pulled the screw
from the rotten wall. The aperture was sufficiently large. It admitted
the repellent odor he had noticed in the shop; so he put his eye to the
hole and waited for his brain to accustom itself to these new
conditions.

The drone of voices reached him, but at first he could see very
little--shadowy outlines circling a dull, glowing thing close to the
floor--a brazier, he decided, about which men sat. Then he started, for
he thought he saw something long and white, like a woman. But the smoke
from the aperture hurt his eye. He had to close it. When he opened it
again there was nothing white, but out of the droning voices came words
in English with a foreign accent, and he crouched against the wall,
listening.

He marveled that he should hear just these