“I want to speak to Mr. Krilenko,” he said when he got the number he had asked for. “Is that you, Professor? Desmond Okewood speaking. I want you to come round here at once. You can’t? You’re in bed with lumbago? Damn! Well, I’ll just have to come to you, that’s all. Yes, I’ll be along in twenty minutes.” “It’ll have to be the overhead route,” he said to his brother as he replaced the receiver. Francis looked anxiously at him. “Call up the Chief,” he said in an undertone, “and get help. You’re so devilish reckless, Des. What are you up to now?” “If Miss Maxwell will lend me her holy picture for an hour or so,” his brother retorted, smiling graciously at the American, “I’m going to make a few inquiries. No need to worry the Chief—at least, not yet. Bolt the front door, will you, old boy? And if I were you I shouldn’t answer the bell while I’m away.” The little lobby between Desmond Okewood’s bedroom and the bathroom was surmounted by a skylight to which a ladder gave access. When not in use the ladder was hoisted out of reach by means of a rope and pulley. Having buttoned the ikon beneath his waistcoat, Desmond lowered the ladder and mounted to the skylight. With a wave of his hand to Francis and Patricia looking up at him from below, he pushed up the skylight and scrambled through, pulling the ladder up after him; they heard the glazed trap slam and he was gone. With the sure gait of one who treads a familiar path, Desmond made his way across the black leads, a mere shadow dimly seen between the soot-encrusted chimney-pots. The wind blew keen and lusty across the roofs, rattling a loose trap here and there and merrily spinning the chimney-cowls. Above the prowler’s head the sky glowed redly with the reflection of the London lights. Desmond descended a rusty iron fire-ladder, clambered over a chimney buttress, scaled a railing, and at length halted in front of a low grey door. His hand glided along the stone cornice below until it came upon what he was seeking. Within the house a bell trilled faintly twice, then thrice. Then the door opened. A grey-haired woman, shielding against the draught a candle in her hands, stood on the narrow stair. “Why,” she exclaimed, “you’re quite a stranger, sir! It must be fully three years since you last used the overhead route.” Desmond grinned. “I thought I was out of the profession, Mother Howe,” said he, “but, dash it, I’m beginning to think they’ve brought me back!” “Won’t you take a little something, Major?” said the woman, backing down the stairs, “just for old times’ sake?” “I can’t stop!” Desmond answered. “I’m in the deuce of a hurry, Mother Howe, and that’s a fact!” Two minutes later he stood in Saint James’s Street, waiting at the kerb for the taxi he had summoned from the rank. Sixty yards farther along two dim figures still kept their silent watch beneath the lighted windows of Desmond Okewood’s flat.