my friend Karl lifted his glass
to me, saying:

"Well, a Happy New Year, my dear friend. Take my advice, and don't trust
your Baron too implicitly."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "You always speak in enigmas!"

But he laughed, and would say no more.

Next day dawned. Grey and muddy, it was rendered more dismal by my
loneliness. I idled away the morning, anxious to be travelling again,
but at noon there was a caller, a thin, pale-faced girl of fifteen or
so, poorly dressed and evidently of the working-class.

When, in response to her question, I had told her my name, she said:

"I've been sent by the Baron to tell you he wishes to see you very
particularly to-night at nine o'clock, at this address."

She handed me an envelope with an address upon it, and then went down
the stairs.

The address I read was: "4A Bishop's Lane, Chiswick."

The mysterious appointment puzzled me, but after spending a very
cheerless day, I hailed a taxi-cab at eight o'clock and set forth for
Chiswick, a district to which I had never before been.

At length we found ourselves outside an old-fashioned church, and on
inquiry I was told by a boy that Bishop's Lane was at the end of a
footpath which led through the churchyard.

I therefore dismissed the taxi, and after some search, at length found
No. 4A, an old-fashioned house standing alone in the darkness amid a
large garden surrounded by high, bare trees--a house built in the long
ago days before Chiswick became a London suburb.

As I walked up the path the door was opened, and I found the old man Van
Nierop standing behind it.

Without a word he ushered me into a back room, which, to my surprise,
was carpetless and barely furnished. Then he said, in that strange
croaking voice of his:

"Your master will be here in about a quarter of an hour. He's delayed.
Have a cigarette."

I took one from the packet he offered, and still puzzled, lit it and sat
down to await the Baron.

The old man had shuffled out, and I was left alone, when of a sudden a
curious drowsiness overcame me. I fancy there must have been a narcotic
in the tobacco, for I undoubtedly slept.

When I awoke I found, to my amazement, that I could not use my arms. I
was still seated in the wooden arm-chair, but my arms and legs were
bound with ropes, while the chair itself had been secured to four iron
rings screwed into the floor.

Over my mouth was bound a cloth so that I could not speak.

Before me, his thin