Rising, he fumbled beneath his cloak, and with his key unlocked the cupboard and opened the cage, from which the tame rat darted down and across the room. A second later he was sniffing the cloak of the figure from upstairs, running around the hem of the cloak with his little pink nose, while the wearer of the cloak put down a hand to be smelt, saying:
"Nibby, my dear little Nibby, that I have lost so long!"
In all London no scene in broad daylight could have been more weird than that at noon on a summer morning in Bridge Place, Hammersmith.
Boyne, the mystery man, held in such high esteem from Addison Road to Kew, sat there with the poor crouching figure as his victim. Behind those long narrow slits in the white fabric showed a pair of dark, deep-sunken eyes—eyes that were inhuman and unnatural.
The voice from behind the mask was metallic and squeaky. Whether the person was a man or a woman could not be conjectured. The high-pitched note was feminine.
"Am I not good to you to allow you this little relaxation?" asked Boyne. "You don't often get it, I admit, for the old deaf crone is always about, and I can seldom get rid of her."
"I—I felt—I felt very ill—last week. Days ago!" croaked the mysterious occupant of the locked room.
"I go up to you every day. You never complained. You are usually asleep when I come up."
"You come up at night. But all day I look out from the window over the roofs towards the river."
"River! What do you mean? There is no river here. It is a desert—a desert of bricks and mortar. You dream."