ient--I do not ask his name--that I have been here,
or have been making any inquiries respecting him?"

"I think I can promise that," she replied.

"I am much indebted to you."

Robert Cairn hastily left the shop, and began to look about him for a
likely hiding-place from whence, unobserved, he might watch the
photographer's. An antique furniture dealer's, some little distance
along on the opposite side, attracted his attention. He glanced at his
watch. It was half-past ten.

If, upon the pretence of examining some of the stock, he could linger
in the furniture shop for half-an-hour, he would be enabled to get
upon the track of Ferrara!

His mind made up, he walked along and entered the shop. For the next
half-an-hour, he passed from item to item of the collection displayed
there, surveying each in the leisurely manner of a connoisseur; but
always he kept a watch, through the window, upon the photographer's
establishment beyond.

Promptly at eleven o'clock a taxi cab drew up at the door, and from it
a slim man alighted. He wore, despite the heat of the morning, an
overcoat of some woolly material; and in his gait, as he crossed the
pavement to enter the shop, there was something revoltingly
effeminate; a sort of cat-like grace which had been noticeable in a
woman, but which in a man was unnatural, and for some obscure reason,
sinister.

It was Antony Ferrara!

Even at that distance and in that brief time, Robert Cairn could see
the ivory face, the abnormal, red lips, and the long black eyes of
this arch fiend, this monster masquerading as a man. He had much ado
to restrain his rising passion; but, knowing that all depended upon
his cool action, he waited until Ferrara had entered the
photographer's. With a word of apology to the furniture dealer, he
passed quickly into Baker Street. Everything rested, now, upon his
securing a cab before Ferrara came out again. Ferrara's cabman,
evidently, was waiting for him.

A taxi driver fortunately hailed Cairn at the very moment that he
gained the pavement; and Cairn, concealing himself behind the vehicle,
gave the man rapid instructions:

"You see that taxi outside the photographer's?" he said.

The man nodded.

"Wait until someone comes out of the shop and is driven off in it;
then follow. Do not lose sight of the cab for a moment. When it draws
up, and wherever it draws up, drive right past it. Don't attract
attention by stopping. You understand?"

"Quite, sir