etreated to the bottom of the
yard to see if he had aroused notice.

A wait of several minutes brought no alarm, and he plucked up courage.
On the inner side of the house--away from Wordsworth Avenue--a narrow
paved passage led to an outside cellar-way with old-fashioned slanting
doors. He reconnoitred this warily. A bright light was shining from a
window in this alley. He crept below it on hands and knees fearing to
look in until he had investigated a little. He found that one flap of
the cellar door was open, and poked his nose into the aperture. All
was dark below, but a strong, damp stench of paints and chemicals
arose. He sniffed gingerly. "I suppose he stores drugs down there,"
he thought.

Very carefully he crawled back, on hands and knees, toward the lighted
window. Lifting his head a few inches at a time, finally he got his
eyes above the level of the sill. To his disappointment he found the
lower half of the window frosted. As he knelt there, a pipe set in the
wall suddenly vomited liquid which gushed out upon his knees. He
sniffed it, and again smelled a strong aroma of acids. With great
care, leaning against the brick wall of the house, he rose to his feet
and peeped through the upper half of the pane.

It seemed to be the room where prescriptions were compounded. As it
was empty, he allowed himself a hasty survey. All manner of bottles
were ranged along the walls; there was a high counter with scales, a
desk, and a sink. At the back he could see the bamboo curtain which he
remembered having noticed from the shop. The whole place was in the
utmost disorder: mortars, glass beakers, a typewriter, cabinets of
labels, dusty piles of old prescriptions strung on filing hooks, papers
of pills and capsules, all strewn in an indescribable litter. Some
infusion was heating in a glass bowl propped on a tripod over a blue
gas flame. Aubrey noticed particularly a heap of old books several
feet high piled carelessly at one end of the counter.

Looking more carefully, he saw that what he had taken for a mirror over
the prescription counter was an aperture looking into the shop.
Through this he could see Weintraub, behind the cigar case, waiting
upon some belated customer with his shop-worn air of affability. The
visitor departed, and Weintraub locked the door after him and pulled
down the blinds. Then he returned toward the prescription room, and
Aubrey ducked out of view.

Presently he risked lo