always supposed
that it was vacant. But he had not passed that way for nearly a month,
and, meantime, it might have been reopened and tenanted.

The Baron drove the car around to the back of the house and stopped
there.

"Pardon," said he, "that I bring you not to the door of entrance; but
this is the more convenient."

He knocked hurriedly and spoke a few words in French. The key grated
in the lock and the door creaked open. A withered, wiry little man,
dressed in dark grey, stood holding a lighted candle, which flickered
in the draught. His head was nearly bald; his sallow, hairless face
might have been of any age from twenty to a hundred years; his eyes
between their narrow red lids were glittering and inscrutable as those
of a snake. As he bowed and grinned, showing his yellow, broken teeth,
Carmichael thought that he had never seen a more evil face or one more
clearly marked with the sign of the drug-fiend.

"My chauffeur, Gaspard," said the Baron, "also my valet, my cook, my
chambermaid, my man to do all, what you call factotum, is it not? But
he speaks not English, so pardon me once more."

He spoke a few words to the man, who shrugged his shoulders and smiled
with the same deferential grimace while his unchanging eyes gleamed
through their slits. Carmichael caught only the word "Madame" while he
was slipping off his overcoat, and understood that they were talking
of his patient.

"Come," said the Baron, "he says that it goes better, at least not
worse--that is always something. Let us mount at the instant."

The hall was bare, except for a table on which a kitchen lamp was
burning, and two chairs with heavy automobile coats and rugs and veils
thrown upon them. The stairway was uncarpeted, and the dust lay thick
under the banisters. At the door of the back room on the second floor
the Baron paused and knocked softly. A low voice answered, and he went
in, beckoning the doctor to follow.

III

If Carmichael lived to be a hundred he could never forget that first
impression. The room was but partly furnished, yet it gave at once the
idea that it was inhabited; it was even, in some strange way, rich and
splendid. Candles on the mantelpiece and a silver travelling-lamp on
the dressing-table threw a soft light on little articles of luxury,
and photographs in jewelled frames, and a couple of well-bound books,
and a gilt clock marking the half-hour after midnight. A wood fire
burned in the wide chimney-plac