Black stepped down and Garth followed. The steps led diagonally under the angle of the fence. Others rose into the corner of the adjacent yard. If this was their destination it was neither to one side nor directly behind the empty house used as an entrance. Garth marvelled at the simplicity of the contrivance. Two men in half a day could have accomplished the entire excavation and arranged the steps. Moreover, without a definite clue the police would never suspect such an entrance.
While Black carefully lowered the flag on the other side Garth glanced around. They stood in the kitchen shed of a house which, of course, faced the next street. Garth had no doubt that the place was masked with a physician's office, or, perhaps, an appeal for boarders, who, nevertheless, would always fail to find rooms available at the hour of their application. He saw nothing of the man who had admitted them by raising the flag. He was more disturbed than before, since he could picture the inspector's bewilderment on learning that he had entered the house which had been so recently raided and combed.
Garth had small time for speculation. He saw Black press an electric button. Faintly he heard the response from a muffled bell—two rings short, and one long. Almost at once the door opened a crack, but no gleam of light came through. Black muttered something unintelligible to Garth, and led him into a darkness as complete as that which had oppressed him in the empty house. Yet in spite of it he was sure it was a woman who had admitted them.
"This way," Black said.
Garth followed, scarcely breathing. Where would he find Nora? How would he find her?
A door opened ahead, and at last there was a light—a subdued, brown light, unhealthy, suggestive of a melancholy repose.
Black went first, then Garth, into an inner hallway, which was saturated with this aberrant radiance.
Garth turned sharply to inspect the woman who had followed them in. He drew back. He controlled his gasp of relief and gratitude, for it was Nora herself who had opened the door for them and who stood now on the threshold of the hall. Yet he saw that his presence, instead of bringing to them a grateful welcome, had drawn into her eyes a fear which quickly approached despair.
She wore the apron and the cap of a housemaid, transparent hints as to how she had found an entrance and remained here, unmolested. Her features, in addition, were subtly changed, so that one, less acquainted with them than Garth, might have passed her unrecognizing.
His astonishment had held him longer than was discreet. He turned at a sound to find his conductor gone. He knew what that portended. He cursed his carelessness.