The taller of the two, a man wearing a glistening brown overall and rain-drenched tweed cap, was the detective who had been in Leroux’s study and who had ordered him to his room on the night of the murder!

Then commenced for Soames such an ordeal as all his previous life had not offered him; an ordeal beside which even the interview with Mr. King sank into insignificance.  His one hope was in the cunning of Said’s disguise; but he knew that Scotland Yard men judged likenesses, not by complexions, which are alterable, not by the color of the hair, which can be dyed, but by certain features which are measurable, and which may be memorized because nature has fashioned them immutable.

What should he do?—­What should he do?  In the silence: 

“No good stopping any longer,” came the whispered voice of the shorter detective; “I have had a good look around the house, and there is nobody here."...

Soames literally held his breath.

“We’ll get along down to the Dock Gate,” was the almost inaudible reply; “I am meeting Stringer there at nine o’clock.”

Walking softly, the Scotland Yard men passed out of the theater.

XIX

THE LIVING DEAD

The night held yet another adventure in store for Soames.  His encounter with the two Scotland Yard men had finally expelled all thoughts of pleasure from his mind.  The upper world, the free world, was beset with pitfalls; he realized that for the present, at any rate, there could be no security for him, save in the catacombs of Ho-Pin.  He came out of the music-hall and stood for a moment just outside the foyer, glancing fearfully up and down the rain-swept street.  Then, resuming the drenched raincoat which he had taken off in the theater, and turning up its collar about his ears, he set out to return to the garage adjoining the warehouse of Kan-Suh Concessions.

He had fully another hour of leave if he cared to avail himself of it, but, whilst every pedestrian assumed, in his eyes, the form of a detective, whilst every dark corner seemed to conceal an ambush, whilst every passing instant he anticipated feeling a heavy hand upon his shoulder, and almost heard the words:—­“Luke Soames, I arrest you"...  Whilst this was his case, freedom had no joys for him.

No light guided him to the garage door, and he was forced to seek for the handle by groping along the wall.  Presently, his hand came in contact with it, he turned it—­and the way was open before him.

Being far from familiar with the geography of the place, he took out a box of matches, and struck one to light him to the shelf above which the bell-push was concealed.

Its feeble light revealed, not only the big limousine near which he was standing and the usual fixtures of a garage, but, dimly penetrating beyond into the black places, it also revealed something else....