“Quick!” he whispered from that eyrie, closing his umbrella. “I am pressed for time in all things these days--quick!” A little reluctantly Gilead joined him. “Pressed for time,” repeated the other, bending and fumbling; “and my movements must be swift and secret. This is excellently fine of you. Your reward shall consist in the vindication of a calumniated soul. Quick! We will make straight for the cellar.” He was busy with a labelled latchkey as he spoke, fitting it into the lock. “Procured from the house agents,” he murmured. “My own key and my own house; but they weren’t to know that.” The door fell open with the word, revealing a cavern of chill blackness. Involuntarily Gilead shrunk a little. The other noticed and protested. “There is nothing to apprehend--neither goblins nor conspirators,” he said. “You were quite confident as to the dark, you know.” With a blush of shame, Gilead entered; and instantly the little man shut the door softly upon them both, and producing an electric lamp from his breast-pocket, switched on a spark, whose tiny brilliancy hung in the gloom like a fen-candle, obscurely peopling its thickness. But it was enough to reveal a desert of bare walls, carpetless floors and lightless ceilings. Gilead, after one look around, addressed his companion firmly:-- “This is your house, you say?” “Unquestionably.” “It is empty--unoccupied.” “But it is my house, all the same.” The young man considered. A deserted building, a conceivably demented owner, and the rest of the circumstances! What was he to conclude? He seemed to be on the verge of some disturbing discovery. But it was his duty, to himself and his Bureau, to proceed. Certain diffident tremors in him had of late weakened of their force. He had enjoyed his incredible possessions long enough to evolve that sixth sense of omnipotence which is peculiar to plutocracy. All risks appeared easily negotiable to him, endowed with that Fortunatus’s purse. Luckily for the world, as it happened, the chances that tempted him were all on the side of chivalry and justice. “Will you come?” said Mr Judex. He went before, treading softly, and holding his lamp high overhead. Gilead followed as quietly, through the empty hall, to the head of the basement stairs, and down them into a vortex of reeling night. Domestic catacombs, rows of cobwebby bells, disconnected gas-meters, a remote gurgle of drain-water, horrible, secret, suggestive of blood-choked lungs labouring somewhere in the darkness, a clammy smell of distempered walls and icy flags--all these things, glimpsed or divined in passing, were spectrally impressed upon his consciousness as he pursued the tiny jack-o’-lantern dancing before him into foundering glooms. And then suddenly, turning off into a deep alcove, they had brought up before a door, strong and solid, standing slightly ajar, with a great key in its lock. “The wine-cellar!” whispered his guide; and he gingerly swung open the door, and backed to the wall.