'Eighty-nine in the Court, sir,' the man replied. 'Shall I send up?' 'I'll go myself,' Lavendale decided. Jules bowed and, although Lavendale did not glance around, he felt that the girl's eyes as well as the man's followed him to the door. He rang for the lift and ascended to the fourth floor, made his way down the corridor and paused before number eighty-nine. He knocked at the door--there was no reply. Then he tried the handle, which yielded at once to his touch. Inside all was darkness. He turned on the electric light and pushed open the door of the sitting-room just in front. 'Mr. Hurn!' he exclaimed, raising his voice. There was still no reply,--a strange, brooding silence which seemed to possess subtle qualities of mystery and apprehension. Lavendale had all the courage and unshaken nerves of youth and yet at that moment he was afraid. His groped along the wall for the switch and found it with an impulse of relief. The room was flooded with soft light--Lavendale's hand seemed glued to the little brass knob. He stood there with his back to the wall, his face set, speechless. Mr. Daniel H. Hurn was seated in an easy-chair in what appeared at first to be a natural attitude. His head, however, had fallen back, and from his neck drooped the long end of a silken cord. Lavendale took one step forward and then paused again. The man's face was visible now--white, ghastly, with wide-open, sightless eyes.... The valet, who was passing down the corridor, paused and looked in at the door. 'Is there anything wrong, sir?' he asked. Lavendale seemed to come back with a rush into the world of real things. He withdrew the key from the door, stepped outside and locked it. 'You had better take that to the manager,' he said. 'I will wait outside here. Tell him to come at once.' 'Anything wrong, sir?' the valet repeated. Lavendale nodded. 'The man there in the chair is dead!' he whispered. CHAPTER II THE LOST FORMULA The two young men stood side by side before the window of the Milan smoke-room--Ambrose Lavendale, the American, and his friend Captain Merrill from the War Office. Directly opposite to them was a narrow street running down to the Embankment, at the foot of which they could catch a glimpse of the river. A little to the left was a dark and melancholy building with a number of sightless windows. 'Wonder what sort of people live in that place?' Merrill asked curiously. 'Milan Mansions they call it, don't they?' The other nodded. 'Gloomy sort of barracks,' he remarked. 'I've never seen even a face at the window.' 'There's a new experience for you, then,' Merrill observed, pointing a little forward,--'a girl's face, too.'