"That must be him, Jack," he said tersely. "He's overdue now. Listen!"
An instant later, as the car stopped outside, with a grinding of brakes, he went on swiftly: "Better slip down and make sure about it. Hager's there, but we don't want anything to go wrong. I'll take a peep out of the window."
The tall fellow hastily left the room, while Brennen stepped quickly to one of the windows and drew up a corner of the shade. Lawrence, his brain whirling and every nerve tense, stood dazedly for a second, then began to walk nervously up and down the floor. In a few moments he would know. Unless he was very much mistaken, the whole baffling mystery would swiftly be revealed to him, and he could scarcely restrain his impatience.
The closing of a door downstairs made him turn hastily in that direction; then his glance trailed back to the long mirror placed in the middle of the wall opposite the windows. Even in his perturbed state of mind, he noticed how like the black walnut frame was, in shape and size, to a doorway, and wondered why, with all the other looking-glasses about the room, another had been inserted here.
Of course it was a mirror, for, dim as the light was at this distance from the shaded lamp, he could see his own figure outlined in the glass, and even make out every detail of his face and clothes.
Then suddenly a puzzled wrinkle came into his forehead. There was something odd about the reflection. The background was dark, and showed no sign of the lamp on the marble-topped table. Curious, Barry took a single step forward to discover what was the matter, then stopped still as if turned to stone.
The reflection in the glass had smiled.
For the fraction of a second Lawrence felt that he was going mad. Then, in a flash, he realized the truth. It was not a mirror at all, but a doorway, in which stood a man who looked at him out of his own eyes, smiled at him with his own smile; whose face and figure, down to the smallest detail, could not have been more like Barry's if the two had been bronze statues cast from the same mold. Even their clothes were of strikingly similar style.
CHAPTER XLIII.
HIS SECOND HALF.