Two of the cushion seats sometimes called “poof-ottomans” were thrown down, and:
“Up you come!” called Harley. “I'll grasp your hands if you can reach.”
It proved no easy task, but I finally managed to scramble up beside my friend—to find myself in a dark and stuffy little room.
“This way!” said Harley rapidly—“upstairs.”
He led the way without more ado, but it was with serious misgivings that I stumbled up a darkened stair in the rear of my greatly daring friend.
A pistol cracked in the darkness—and my fez was no longer on my head!
Harley's repeater answered, and we stumbled through a heavily curtained door into a heated room, the air of which was laden with some Eastern perfume. In the dim light from a silken-shaded lantern a figure showed, momentarily, darting across the place before us.
Again Harley's pistol spoke, but, as it seemed, ineffectively.
I had little enough opportunity to survey my surroundings; yet even in those brief, breathless moments I saw enough of the place wherein we stood to make me doubt the evidence of my senses! Outside, I knew, lay a dingy wharf, amid a maze of mean streets; here was an opulently furnished apartment with a strong Oriental note in the decorations!
Snatching an electric torch from his pocket, Harley leaped through a doorway draped with rich Persian tapestry, and I came close on his heels. Outside was darkness. A strong draught met us; and, passing along a carpeted corridor, we never halted until we came to a room filled with the weirdest odds and ends, apparently collected from every quarter of the globe.