The drive was unspeakably wearisome; but after a while I suppose that the monotonous rumbling of the wheels and the incessant patter of the rain against the window-panes lulled me into a kind of torpor.  Certain it is that presently—­much sooner than I had anticipated—­the chaise drew up with a jerk, and I was roused to full consciousness by hearing M. Berty’s voice saying curtly: 

“Here we are!  Come with me!”

I was stiff, Sir, and I was shivering—­not so much with cold as with excitement.  You will readily understand that all my faculties were now on the qui vive.  Somehow or other during the wearisome drive by the side of my close-tongued companion my mind had fastened on the certitude that my adventure of this night bore a close connexion to the firm of Fournier Freres and to the English files which were causing so many sleepless nights to M. le Duc d’Otrante, Minister of Police.

But nothing in my manner, as I stepped out of the carriage under the porch of the house which loomed dark and massive out of the surrounding gloom, betrayed anything of what I felt.  Outwardly I was just a worthy bourgeois, an interpreter by profession, and delighted at the remunerative work so opportunely put in my way.

The house itself appeared lonely as well as dark.  M. Berty led the way across a narrow passage, at the end of which there was a door which he pushed open, saying in his usual abrupt manner:  “Go in there and wait.  I’ll send for you directly.”

Then he closed the door on me, and I heard his footsteps recrossing the corridor and presently ascending some stairs.  I was left alone in a small, sparsely furnished room, dimly lighted by an oil lamp which hung down from the ceiling.  There was a table in the middle of the room, a square of carpet on the floor, and a couple of chairs beside a small iron stove.  I noticed that the single window was closely shuttered and barred.  I sat down and waited.  At first the silence around me was only broken by the pattering of the rain against the shutters and the soughing of the wind down the iron chimney pipe, but after a little while my senses, which by this time had become super-acute, were conscious of various noises within the house itself:  footsteps overhead, a confused murmur of voices, and anon the unmistakable sound of a female voice raised as if in entreaty or in complaint.

Somehow a vague feeling of alarm possessed itself of my nervous system.  I began to realise my position—­alone, a stranger in a house as to whose situation I had not the remotest idea, and among a set of men who, if my surmises were correct, were nothing less than a gang of determined and dangerous criminals.  The voices, especially the female one, were now sounding more clear.  I tiptoed to the door, and very gently opened it.  There was indeed no mistaking the tone of desperate pleading which came from some room above and through & woman’s lips.  I even caught the words:  “Oh, don’t!  Oh, don’t!  Not again!” repeated at intervals with pitiable insistence.