They were nearing the door when there came heavy footsteps behind them, and the light of a hand lamp swept the corridor just behind them. There were men talking, also, in a language she did not understand. Blaythwayt stopped in his tracks, apparently frozen with terror, and she gripped his arm. "Into that room!" she whispered. "They know us there." She was opening the door when the approaching rays veered upwards and fell full on herself and the trembling Joe. A hoarse challenge echoed down the passage. Unconcernedly the girl took her yellow packet of gaspers from her pocket and began to light one as she waited for the men to come up with them. And then, as they arrived and grouped themselves about the door, she returned the box of matches to her right-hand jacket pocket--and kept her hand there. The bright light searched their faces. "Who are you?" demanded a cultured voice with only a slight accent. "I don't know you." "I know 'em," said another, and added a few words she could not interpret. The frosted bulb overhead woke to life, and they were relieved of the merciless glare of the interrogator's spotlight. She looked about for the one who had claimed to know them, but none of that dishevelled dozen seemed likely to possess so smooth a voice. And then he spoke again--a man clad only in his trousers and a greasy singlet, who stood half a head above the rest. "They are special messengers of the Apex. Who admitted them?" "I did." It was the janitor, whom she had not recognised through the smears of engine oil which disfigured his face, who spoke. "Zat was 'ow zey zemselves called. Ze beeg one 'ave ask for Morini, and ze mignon for Prestaire Jean." "That's in order. John and Morini won't be here to-night--I know where to find them. You'd better go." It was a miracle to Susan, for the man's face was unknown to her. And yet there was something vaguely familiar about the cast of it. Just that indefinable carriage of the broad shoulders, the lithe swing of the powerful arms--and yet the lank, oily black hair struck no chord in her memory. She looked at his eyes more closely ... _gun-metal grey_.... Surely only one man in the world had eyes of the curious tint, and, taken with the other resemblances in poise of head and general bearing.... He met her gaze calmly, and she could have sworn that the flicker of a smile feinted at the corners of his mouth. "I'll go with you, if you like to wait a minute," he said. "I'll just get my coat." A few seconds later he was back, folding a scarf round his bare throat and buttoning his coat tightly around it. Only one man returned with him, as if receiving his final instructions, and now that she had caught an answering "_Si señor_," she gathered that they were speaking in Spanish. The man unbarred the front door for them, and they passed out, Storm going last. A curt exchange of "_Buenos noches_," and the bolts slithered home on the inside.