that the parties over my head (two
men and a woman I believe she said) were giving her some trouble, but
that they paid well and therefore she did not like to turn them out,--it
aroused a vague suspicion in my mind, and led to my walking back to the
door I had endeavored to open in my abstraction, and carefully looking
at it.

It was plain and white, rather ruder of make than those below, but
offering no inducements for prolonged scrutiny. But not so with the
one that stood at right angles to it on the left. Full in the centre
of that, I beheld distinctly scrawled, probably with the very piece of
chalk I then held, a red cross precisely similar in outline to the one
I had seen a few days before on the panel of the Schoenmakers' door at
Granby.

The discovery sent a thrill over me that almost raised my hair on end.
Was, then, this famous trio to be found in the very house in which I had
been myself living for a week or more? over my head in fact? I could
not withdraw my gaze from the mysterious looking object. I bent near, I
listened, I heard what sounded like the suppressed snore of a powerful
man, and almost had to lay hold of myself to prevent my hand from
pushing open that closed door and my feet from entering. As it was I did
finger the knob a little, but an extra loud snore from within reminded
me by its suggestion of strength that I was but a small man and that in
this case and at this hour, discretion was the better part of valor.

I therefore withdrew, but for the whole night lay awake listening to
catch any sounds that might come from above, and going so far as to plan
what I would do if it should be proved that I was indeed upon the trail
of the men I was so anxious to encounter.

With the breaking of day I was upon my feet. A rude step had gone up
the stairs a few minutes before and I was all alert to follow. But
I presently considered that my wisest course would be to sound the
landlady and learn if possible with what sort of characters I had to
deal. Routing her out of the kitchen, where at that early hour she was
already engaged in domestic duties, I drew her into a retired corner and
put my questions. She was not backward in replying. She had conceived an
innocent liking for me in the short time I had been with her--a display
of weakness for which I was myself, perhaps, as much to blame as
she--and was only too ready to pour out her griefs into my sympathizing
ear. For those men were a grief to her, a