Wonderful," jeered Pauline. "Not even a secret passage or a
subterranean den!"

The others followed her laughing lead up the stairs.

A Chinaman came out of the door on the second landing, stopped, started
in innocent curiosity at the dazzling visitors and went down the
stairs. Everything was as still and commonplace as if they had been in
the hallway of a Harlem flat building.

The silence was not broken or the seeming safety disturbed in the
slightest by the soft opening of the first landing door, after they had
passed--that is, after all but Owen had passed. No one but Owen saw
the piercing black eyes and the tilted mustachios of the face that
appeared for an instant at the door.

There was a corridor, not so well lighted, at the top of the third
flight of stairs. In the dim turns the women drew their skirts about
them, a bit wary of the black, short walls.

The passage narrowed. They could move now only in single file, and
even then their shoulders brushed the walls.

Only a far, dull glow from a red lamp over a door at the end of a
passage lighted their way.

Baskinelli tapped lightly on the door.

It was opened by a venerable Chinaman in the flowing robes of a
priest. He looked at them doubtfully. Baskinelli spoke three words
that his companions did not hear. The priest vanished. Quickly the
door was reopened and they stepped into the dim, smoky, stifling
presence of the joss.

The choking scent of the punk always at the folded feet of the idol was
almost suffocating. The place had other odors less noxious and less
sweet. Chinamen were lounging in the room as if it had been a place of
rest. Three priests were on their knees before the joss swaying
forward till their foreheads almost touched the floor, their
outstretched arms moving in mystic symmetry with their rocking bodies.

A great brass bell hung low beside the idol. But no priest touched the
bell.

The joss itself was almost the least impressive thing in the room. It
stood, or squatted, six feet high, on a block pedestal at the side of
the room. The simple hideousness of the painted features served no
impressive purpose, but as contrast to the exquisite decorations of the
room.

Screens of carved wood, so delicately wrought that it seemed a touch
would break the graven fibers, were flecked with inlay of pearl and
covering of gold.

One of the peculiar features of the room was a suit of ancient Chinese
armor--a relic that had