I do not suppose that Gideon will ever forget the Langham Hotel.  No Count Tarnow was one thing; no John Dickson and no Ezra Thomas, quite another.  How, why, and what next, danced in his bewildered brain; from every centre of what we playfully call the human intellect incongruous messages were telegraphed; and before the hubbub of dismay had quite subsided, the barrister found himself driving furiously for his chambers.  There was at least a cave of refuge; it was at least a place to think in; and he climbed the stair, put his key in the lock and opened the door, with some approach to hope.

It was all dark within, for the night had some time fallen; but Gideon knew his room, he knew where the matches stood on the end of the chimney-piece; and he advanced boldly, and in so doing dashed himself against a heavy body; where (slightly altering the expressions of the song) no heavy body should have been.  There had been nothing there when Gideon went out; he had locked the door behind him, he had found it locked on his return, no one could have entered, the furniture could not have changed its own position.  And yet undeniably there was a something there.  He thrust out his hands in the darkness.  Yes, there was something, something large, something smooth, something cold.

‘Heaven forgive me!’ said Gideon, ‘it feels like a piano.’

And the next moment he remembered the vestas in his waistcoat pocket and had struck a light.

It was indeed a piano that met his doubtful gaze; a vast and costly instrument, stained with the rains of the afternoon and defaced with recent scratches.  The light of the vesta was reflected from the varnished sides, like a staice in quiet water; and in the farther end of the room the shadow of that strange visitor loomed bulkily and wavered on the wall.

Gideon let the match burn to his fingers, and the darkness closed once more on his bewilderment.  Then with trembling hands he lit the lamp and drew near.  Near or far, there was no doubt of the fact:  the thing was a piano.  There, where by all the laws of God and man it was impossible that it should be—­there the thing impudently stood.  Gideon threw open the keyboard and struck a chord.  Not a sound disturbed the quiet of the room.  ‘Is there anything wrong with me?’ he thought, with a pang; and drawing in a seat, obstinately persisted in his attempts to ravish silence, now with sparkling arpeggios, now with a sonata of Beethoven’s which (in happier days) he knew to be one of the loudest pieces of that powerful composer.  Still not a sound.  He gave the Broadwood two great bangs with his clenched first.  All was still as the grave.  The young barrister started to his feet.

‘I am stark-staring mad,’ he cried aloud, ’and no one knows it but myself.  God’s worst curse has fallen on me.’

His fingers encountered his watch-chain; instantly he had plucked forth his watch and held it to his ear.  He could hear it ticking.