the air, on the iron balcony, you'll feel
better. But then, you know, sir, you'll have to come round to the
front if you wants to come in again, for those emergency doors only
open outward."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Sleuth hurriedly. "I quite understand! If I
feel better I'll come in by the front way, and pay another shilling
--that's only fair."

"You needn't do that if you'll just explain what happened here."

The man went and pulled the curtain aside, and put his shoulder
against the door. It burst open, and the light, for a moment,
blinded Mr. Sleuth.

He passed his hand over his eyes. "Thank you," he muttered, "thank
you. I shall get all right out there."

An iron stairway led down into a small stable yard, of which the
door opened into a side street.

Mr. Sleuth looked round once more; he really did feel very ill--
ill and dazed. How pleasant it would be to take a flying leap over
the balcony railing and find rest, eternal rest, below.

But no--he thrust the thought, the temptation, from him. Again a
convulsive look of rage came over his face. He had remembered his
landlady. How could the woman whom he had treated so generously have
betrayed him to his arch-enemy?--to the official, that is, who had
entered into a conspiracy years ago to have him confined--him, an
absolutely sane man with a great avenging work to do in the world--
in a lunatic asylum.

He stepped out into the open air, and the curtain, falling-to behind
him, blotted out the tall, thin figure from the little group of
people who had watched him disappear.

Even Daisy felt a little scared. "He did look bad, didn't he, now?"
she turned appealingly to Mr. Hopkins.

"Yes, that he did, poor gentleman--your lodger, too?" he looked
sympathetically at Mrs. Bunting.

She moistened her lips with her tongue. "Yes," she repeated dully,
"my lodger."

CHAPTER XXVII

In vain Mr. Hopkins invited Mrs. Bunting and her pretty stepdaughter
to step through into the Chamber of Horrors. "I think we ought to
go straight home," said Mr. Sleuth's landlady decidedly. And Daisy
meekly assented. Somehow the girl felt confused, a little scared by
the lodger's sudden disappearance. Perhaps this unwonted feeling of
hers was induced by the look of stunned surprise and, yes, pain, on
her stepmother's face.

Slowly they made their way out of the building, and when they got
home it was Daisy who described the strange way Mr. Sleuth had been
taken.

"I don't sup