Sybarite, pulling himself together (now that he had audience critical of his demeanour) walked in with a very tolerable swagger--with a careless, good-humoured nod for his host and a quick look round the room to make certain they were alone.

"Doctor been?"

"Oh--an hour ago."

"And--?"

"Says I'm all right if blood-poisoning doesn't set in."

Shutting the door, Peter grinned not altogether happily. "That's one of the most fetching features of the new code of medical ethics, you know--complete confidence inspired in patient by utter frankness on doctor's part--and all that!...

"'An insignificant puncture,'" he mimicked: "'you'll be right as rain in a week--unless the wound decides to gangrene--it's apt to, all on its own, 'spite of anything we can do--in which case we'll have to amputate your body to prevent infection spreading to your head.'...

"Well?" he wound up almost gaily. "What luck?"

"The worst. Where are my rags? I've got to change and run. Also--while you're up"--Peter had just dropped into a chair--"you might be good enough to mix me a Scotch and soda."

Whereupon, while changing his clothes, and between breaths and gulps of whiskey-and-water, P. Sybarite delivered himself of an abbreviated summary of what had happened at the ball and after.

"But why," he wound up peevishly--"_why_ didn't you tell me Bayard Shaynon lived in the flat below you?"

"Didn't occur to me; and if you ask me, I don't see why it should interest you now."

"Because," said P. Sybarite quietly, "I'm going down there and break in as soon as I'm dressed fit to go to jail."

"In the sacred name of Insanity--!"

"If he's out, I'll steal that telegram and find out whether it has any bearing on the case. If it hasn't, I'll sift every inch of the room for a suspicion of a leading clue."

"But if he's in--?"

"I'll take my chances," said P. Sybarite with grim brevity.

"Unarmed?"

"Not if I know the nature of the brute." He stood up, fully dressed but for his shoes. "Now--my gun, please."

"Top drawer of the buffet there. How are you going? Fire escape?"

"Where is it?" P. Sybarite asked as he possessed himself of his weapon.

"Half a minute." Peter Kenny held out his hand. "Let's have a look at that gun--will you?"

"What for?"

"One of those newfangled automatic pistols--isn't it? I 've never seen one before."

"But--Great Scott!--you've had this here--"

"I know, but I didn't pay much attention--thinking of other things--"

"But you're delaying me--"

"Mean to," said Peter Kenny purposefully; and without giving P.

Sybarite the least hint of his intention, suddenly imprisoned his wrist, grabbed the weapon by the barrel, and took it to himself--with the greater ease since the other neither understood nor attempted resistance.

"What in blazes--?" he enquired, puzzled, watching Peter turn the weapon over curiously in his hands. "I should think--"

"There!" Peter interrupted placidly, withdrawing the magazine clip from its slot in the b.u.t.t and returning the now harmless mechanism.

"Now run along. Fire-escape's outside the far window in the bedroom, yonder."

"What the deuce! What's the matter with you? Hand over that clip. What good is this gun without it?"

"For your present purpose, it's better than if loaded," Peter a.s.serted complacently. "For purposes of intimidation--which is all you want of it--grand! And it can't go off by accident and make you an unintentional murderer."

P. Sybarite's jaw dropped and his eyes opened; but after an instant, he nodded in entire agreement.

"That's a head you have on your shoulders, boy!" said he. "As for mine, I've a notion that it has never really jelled."

He turned toward the bedroom, but paused.

"Only--why not say what you want? Why these roundabout ways to your purpose? Have you, by any chance, been educated for the bar?"

"That's the explanation," laughed Peter. "I'm to be admitted to practise next year. Meanwhile, circ.u.mlocution's my specialty."

"It is!" said P. Sybarite with conviction. "Well ... back in five minutes...."

Of all his weird adventures, this latest pleased him least. It's one thing to take chances under cover of night when your heart is light, your pockets heavy, and wine is buzzing wantonly within your head: but another thing altogether to burglarise your enemy's apartments via the fire-escape, in broad daylight, and cold-sober. For by now the light was clear and strong, in the open.

Yet to his relief he found no more than limpid twilight in the cramped and shadowed well down which zigzagged the fire-escape; while the opposite wall of the adjoining building ran blind from earth to roof; giving comfortable a.s.surance that none could spy upon him save from the Monastery windows.

"One thing more"--Peter Kenny came to the window to advise, as P.

Sybarite scrambled out upon the gridiron platform--"Shaynon's flat isn't arranged like mine. He's better off than I am, you know--can afford more elbow-room. I'm not sure, but I _think_ you'll break in--if at all--by the dining-room window.... So long. Good luck!"

Clasping hands, they exchanged an anxious smile before P. Sybarite began his cautious descent.

Not that he found it difficult; the Monastery fire-escape was a series of steep flights of iron steps, instead of the primitive vertical ladder of round iron rungs in more general use. There was even a guard-rail at the outside of each flight. Consequently, P. Sybarite gained the eleventh floor platform very readily.

But there he held up a long instant, dashed to discover his task made facile rather than obstructed.

The window was wide open, to force whose latch he had thoughtfully provided himself with a fruit knife from Peter Kenny's buffet. Within was gloom and stillness absolute--the one rendered the more opaque by heavy velvet hangings, shutting out the light; the other with a quality individual and, as P. Sybarite took it, somehow intimidating--too complete in its promise.

And so for a darkly dubious moment the little man hung back. To his quick Celtic instinct there seemed to inhere, in that open, dark, and silent window, something as sinister and repellent as the inscrutable, soundless menace of a revolver presented to one's head.

Momentarily, indeed, he experienced anew something of that odd terror, unreasoning and inexcusable, that had a.s.sailed him some time since, outside the hall-door to this abode of enigmatic and uncanny quiet....

But at length, shaking his head impatiently--as if to rid it of its pestering swarm of fancies--he stepped noiselessly, in his unshod feet, down through the window, cautiously parted the draperies, and advanced into darkness so thick that there might as well have been night outside instead of glowing daybreak.

Then, with eyes becoming accustomed to the change, he made out shapes and ma.s.ses that first confirmed Peter's surmise as to the nature of the room, and next gave him his bearings.