he grinding of the key as he
locked the area door.

I stood in a kind of cupboard in pitch darkness, hardly daring to
breathe.

Once more I heard the man singing his idiotic song. I did not dare look
out from my hiding-place, for his voice sounded so near that I feared he
might be still in the passage.

So I stood and waited.

* * * * *

I must have stayed there for an hour in the dark. I heard the waiter
coming and going in the scullery, listened to his heavy tramp, to his
everlasting snatch of song, to the rattle of utensils, as he went about
his work. Every minute of the time I was tortured by the apprehension
that he would come to the cupboard in the passage.

It was cold in that damp subterranean place. The cupboard was roomy
enough, so I thought I would put on the overcoat I was carrying. As I
stretched out my arm, my hand struck hard against some kind of
projecting hook in the wall behind me.

"Damn!" I swore savagely under my breath, but I put out my hand again to
find out what had hurt me. My fingers encountered the cold iron of a
latch. I pressed it and it gave.

A door swung open and I found myself in another little area with a
flight of stone steps leading to the street.

* * * * *

I was in a narrow lane driven between the tall sides of the houses. It
was a cul-de-sac. At the open end I could see the glimmer of street
lamps. It had stopped raining and the air was fresh and pleasant.
Carrying my bag I walked briskly down the lane and presently emerged in
a quiet thoroughfare traversed by a canal--probably the street, I
thought, that I had seen from the windows of my bedroom. The Hotel Sixt
lay to the right of the lane: I struck out to the left and in a few
minutes found myself in an open square behind the Bourse.

There I found a cab-rank with three or four cabs drawn up in line, the
horses somnolent, the drivers snoring inside their vehicles. I stirred
up the first and bade the driver take me to the Cafe Tarnowski.

Everyone who has been to Holland knows the Cafe Tarnowski at Rotterdam.
It is an immense place with hundreds of marble-topped tables tucked away
among palms under a vast glazed roof. Day or night it never closes: the
waiters succeed each other in shifts: day and night the great hall
resounds to the cry of orders, the patter of the waiters' feet, the
click of dominoes on the marble tables.

Delicious Dutch cafe au lait