The street was but a prosaic place after the haunt of mystery I had just left. It was like stepping from the Dark Ages into the nineteenth century. Yet there was something puzzling about it. The street had no suggestion of the familiar, and it appeared somehow to have been turned end for end. I had lost my sense of direction. The hills were where the bay ought to be. I seemed to have changed sides of the street, and it took me a little time to readjust the points of the compass. I reasoned at last that Dicky Nahl had led me to the street below before turning to the place, and I had not noticed that we had doubled on our course. I hurried along the streets with but a three-minute stop to swallow a cup of coffee and a roll, and once more mounted the stairs to the office and opened the door to Number 15. The place was in disorder. The books that had been arranged on the desk and shelves were now scattered about in confusion, as though they had been hurriedly examined and thrown aside in a fruitless search. This was a disturbing incident, and I was surprised to discover that the door into the adjoining room was ajar. I pushed it wide open, and started back. Before me stood Doddridge Knapp, his face pale as the face of a corpse, and his eyes starting as though the dead had risen before him. CHAPTER IX A DAY IN THE MARKET The King of the Street stood for a moment staring at me with that strange and fearsome gaze. What was there in that dynamic glance that struck a chill to my spirit as though the very fountain of life had been attacked? Was it the manifestation of the powerful will behind that mask? Or was it terror or anger that was to be read in the fiery eyes that gleamed from beneath those bushy brows, and in the play of the cruel mouth, which from under that yellow-gray mustache gave back the sign of the Wolf? “Have you any orders, sir?” I asked in as calm a voice as I could command. “Oh, it's you, is it?” said the Wolf slowly, covering his fangs. It flashed on me that the attack in the Borton den was of his planning, that Terrill was his tool, and that he had supposed me dead. It was thus that I could account for his startled gaze and evident discomposure. “Nine o'clock was the time, you said,” I suggested deferentially. “I believe it's a minute or two past.” “Oh, yes,” said Doddridge Knapp, pulling himself together. “Come in here.” He looked suspiciously at me as he took a seat at his desk, and motioned me to another. “I had a little turn,” he said, eying me nervously; “a vertigo, I believe the doctor called it. Just reach my overcoat pocket there, will you?--the left-hand side. Yes, bring me that flask.” He poured out a small glass of liquor, and the rich odor of brandy rose through the room. Then he took a vial from an inside pocket, counted a few drops into the glass, and drank it at a swallow. I marveled at the actions of the man, and wondered if he was nerving himself to some deed that he lacked courage to perform.