over the back fence. You heard me take a shot at
him? No?"

"No, I didn't," said the woman in a manner eloquent of positive
incredulity.

"Well, _any_way," P. Sybarite went on with elaborate ease, "I saw this
man climb your fire-escape and so I came after him."

The woman frowned as she weighed this likely story; and P. Sybarite
was at pains to conceal any exultation he may have felt over the
prompt response of his vivid imagination to the call of exigence.

Would she or wouldn't she accept that wildly fanciful yarn of his? For
moments that, brief though they must have been, seemed intolerably
protracted, he awaited her verdict in the extremest anxiety--not,
however, neglecting to employ the respite thus afforded him to make
another quick survey of the room and a second and more shrewd
appraisal of its admirably self-possessed tenant.

A bit too florid and ornate--he concluded--woman and lodgings alike
were somewhat overdone. A superabundance of gilt and pink marred the
colour scheme of the apartment; and there was ostentatious evidence of
wealth lavishly expended on its furnishings. An overpowering
voluptuousness of silken clothing dressed the bed itself.

But if her setting were luxurious, the woman outshone it tenfold with
the dark splendour of her animal beauty. As comely and as able-bodied
as a young pantheress, she was (one judged) little less dangerous--as
vital, as self-centred, as deadly. Sitting up in bed, openly careless
of charms hardly concealed by nightwear of sheer silk lace and _crepe
de Chine_, she looked P. Sybarite up and down with wide eyes overwise
in the ways of life, shrewdly judicious of mankind; handled her pistol
with experienced confidence; spoke, in a voice of surpassing
sweetness, with decision and considerable overt contempt for the
phraseology of convention--swearing without the least affectation,
slanging heartily when slang best suited her humour....

"Maybe you're telling the truth, at that," she announced suddenly,
eyes coldly unprepossessed. "You sound fishy as all-hell, and God
_knows_ you're the sickest-looking cop I ever laid eyes on; but there
are less unlikely things than that a second-story man should try this
route for his getaway.... Well!" she demanded urgently--"what're you
standing there for, like a stone man?"

"My dear lady--!" expostulated the dismayed P. Sybarite.

"Can the fond stuff and get busy. What're you going to do?"

"What am I--? What--ah--do you w