The motor cars remained far behind across the square as Baskinelli led the party through the dismal streets and stopped before a dark doorway.
A dim light flared behind the door and a Chinaman in American dress admitted them.
"I am beginning to be really bored," said Pauline.
"Wait; give the wicked a chance," said Baskinelli.
They climbed three flights of dingy, narrow stairs, lighted with flaring gas jets.
"Wonderful," jeered Pauline. "Not even a secret passage or a subterranean den!"
The others followed her laughing lead up the stairs.
A Chinaman came out of the door on the second landing, stopped, started in innocent curiosity at the dazzling visitors and went down the stairs. Everything was as still and commonplace as if they had been in the hallway of a Harlem flat building.
The silence was not broken or the seeming safety disturbed in the slightest by the soft opening of the first landing door, after they had passed—that is, after all but Owen had passed. No one but Owen saw the piercing black eyes and the tilted mustachios of the face that appeared for an instant at the door.
There was a corridor, not so well lighted, at the top of the third flight of stairs. In the dim turns the women drew their skirts about them, a bit wary of the black, short walls.