which he stood bowing, with the half-burnt
match in his hand. "This is the place, sir," he announced, motioning me
in.

I entered and he remained by the door, while I passed quickly about the
room, which was bare of every article of furniture save a solitary table
and chair. There was not even a window in it, with the exception of one
small light situated so high up in the corner made by the jutting
staircase that I wondered at its use, and was only relieved of extreme
apprehension at the prison-like appearance of the place by the gleam of
light which came through this dusty pane, showing that I was not
entirely removed from the presence of my foes if I was from that of my
friends.

"Ah, you have spied the window," remarked my host, advancing toward me
with a countenance he vainly endeavoured to make reassuring and
friendly. "That is your post of observation, sir," he whispered, with a
great show of mystery. "By mounting on the table you can peer into the
room where my young friends sit securely at play."

As it was not part of my scheme to show any special mistrust, I merely
smiled a little grimly, and cast a glance at the table on which stood a
bottle of brandy and one glass.

"Very good brandy," he whispered; "not such stuff as we give those
fellows downstairs."

I shrugged my shoulders and he slowly backed towards the door.

"The young men you bid me watch are very quiet," I suggested, with a
careless wave of my hand towards the room he had mentioned.

"Oh, there is no one there yet. They begin to straggle in about ten
o'clock."

"Ah," was my quiet rejoinder, "I am likely, then, to have use for your
brandy."

He smiled again and made a swift motion towards the door.

"If you want anything," said he, "just step to the foot of the staircase
and let me know. The whole establishment is at your service." And with
one final grin that remains in my mind as the most threatening and
diabolical I have ever witnessed, he laid his hand on the knob of the
door and slid quickly out.

It was done with such an air of final farewell that I felt my
apprehensions take a positive form. Rushing towards the door through
which he had just vanished, I listened and heard, as I thought, his
stealthy feet descend the stair. But when I sought to follow, I found
myself for the second time overwhelmed by darkness. The gas jet, which
had hitherto burned with great brightness in the small room, had been
turned off from below, and b