“The instant I read the names upon the cards,” he said, “I ran to the screen and, kneeling beside the dead man, began a search through his pockets.  My hand at once fell upon a card-case, and I found on all the cards it contained the title of the Earl of Chetney.  His watch and cigarette-case also bore his name.  These evidences, and the fact of his bronzed skin, and that his cheek-bones were worn with fever, convinced me that the dead man was the African explorer, and the boy who had fled past me in the night was Arthur, his younger brother.

“I was so intent upon my search that I had forgotten the servant, and I was still on my knees when I heard a cry behind me.  I turned, and saw the man gazing down at the body in abject horror.

“Before I could rise, he gave another cry of terror, and, flinging himself into the hall, raced toward the door to the street.  I leaped after him, shouting to him to halt, but before I could reach the hall he had torn open the door, and I saw him spring out into the yellow fog.  I cleared the steps in a jump and ran down the garden-walk but just as the gate clicked in front of me.  I had it open on the instant, and, following the sound of the man’s footsteps, I raced after him across the open street.  He, also, could hear me, and he instantly stopped running, and there was absolute silence.  He was so near that I almost fancied I could hear him panting, and I held my own breath to listen.  But I could distinguish nothing but the dripping of the mist about us, and from far off the music of the Hungarian band, which I had heard when I first lost myself.

“All I could see was the square of light from the door I had left open behind me, and a lamp in the hall beyond it flickering in the draught.  But even as I watched it, the flame of the lamp was blown violently to and fro, and the door, caught in the same current of air, closed slowly.  I knew if it shut I could not again enter the house, and I rushed madly toward it.  I believe I even shouted out, as though it were something human which I could compel to obey me, and then I caught my foot against the curb and smashed into the sidewalk.  When I rose to my feet I was dizzy and half stunned, and though I thought then that I was moving toward the door, I know now that I probably turned directly from it; for, as I groped about in the night, calling frantically for the police, my fingers touched nothing but the dripping fog, and the iron railings for which I sought seemed to have melted away.  For many minutes I beat the mist with my arms like one at blind man’s buff, turning sharply in circles, cursing aloud at my stupidity and crying continually for help.  At last a voice answered me from the fog, and I found myself held in the circle of a policeman’s lantern.

“That is the end of my adventure.  What I have to tell you now is what I learned from the police.