“My first impulse was to forsake my guide and rush back, but I subdued the unworthy impulse and stood quite still, while my companion exclaiming, ‘Damn that fellow! What does he mean by shutting the door before we’re half-way up!’ struck a match and lit a gas jet in the room above, which poured a flood of light upon the staircase. Drawing my hand from the pocket in which I had put my revolver, I hastened after him into the small landing at the top of the stairs. An open door was before me, in which he stood bowing, with the half-burnt match in his hand. ‘This is the place, sir,’ he announced, motioning me in.
“I entered and he remained by the door, while I passed quickly about the room, which was bare of every article of furniture save a solitary table and chair. There was not even a window in it, with the exception of one small light situated so high up in the corner made by the jutting-up staircase that I wondered at its use, and was only relieved of extreme apprehension at the prison-like appearance of the place by the gleam of light which came through this dusty pane, showing that I was not entirely removed from the presence of my foes if I was from that of my friends.
“‘Ah, you have spied the window,’ remarked my host, advancing toward me with a countenance he vainly endeavored to make reassuring and friendly. ‘That is your post of observation, sir,’ he whispered, with a great show of mystery. ‘By mounting on the table you can peer into the room where my young friends sit securely at play.’
“As it was not part of my scheme to show any special mistrust, I merely smiled a little grimly, and cast a glance at the table on which stood a bottle of brandy and one glass.
“‘Very good brandy,’ he whispered, ‘Not such stuff as we give those fellows down-stairs.’
“I shrugged my shoulders and he slowly backed towards the door.
“‘The young men you bid me watch are very quiet,’ I suggested, with a careless wave of my hand towards the room he had mentioned.
“‘Oh, there is no one there yet. They begin to straggle in about ten o’clock.’
“‘Ah,’ was my quiet rejoinder, ‘I am likely, then, to have use for your brandy.’
“He smiled again and made a swift motion towards the door.