“Open up that desk, Larry,” I whispered. A moment later I heard the snap of the lock. “Now follow me while we search the rest of the place first.” We went back into the tiny, pitch-dark hall again.

The front door was at right angles to the outside hall. The little entrance hall was also at right angles to the outside hall and ended almost at once in an alcove with a sofa and some chairs in it. But we found that another and narrower hall, the entrance to which was hidden by a heavy curtain, passed back inside the flat for its entire length. The dining-room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms led off it in turn, and the hall ended in a window at the back of the house. A third bedroom lay to the right of the hall at the back. As it was a corner house all these rooms had windows.

We found nothing, that is, nothing of any importance to our search. One of the rooms showed evidences of recent feminine occupancy. But there was no one in the apartment—that was certain.

A good deal relieved, I returned to the front hall, stationed Larry in the alcove there, and made my way to Vining’s desk in the front room.

Chapter IX.
The First Skirmish

To my disappointment, there was very little in the desk. A few old letters, an invitation or two, some receipts and a couple of blank income-tax return forms were all that my first search revealed. But having come there with so much difficulty, I was determined to find it, if there were anything to be found, and going through the desk more carefully a second time disclosed something that might be more valuable. It was a tiny account book; I found it in a little hollow under the blotter.

I studied it for a moment there in the silence, by the aid of my little torch, and presently received a shock. For it was half full of names, and these included several of the people whom I knew. After each name was a series of dates, followed by single figures, so that a single entry read something like this:

Emily Horton:August 11—2.
August 15—3.
August 17—2, etc.

Suddenly there was a tiny sound from the hall outside, and I instinctively switched off my torch and slipped the little book into my pocket. I turned toward the doorway, which lay in shadow. Then I became conscious that my heart was pounding heavily, for I could see that something was moving in the shadowy corner.

“Hands up!”