Caruth turned disconsolately away. He was beginning to wonder what had become of Miss Fitzhugh. When he had started down the stairs, she had been close behind him, and he had expected her to follow, but though more than time enough for her to reach the bottom had elapsed, she had not appeared. His first thought was that she had remained above out of some belated care for her reputation. Then, quickly following, came the possibility of a more sinister explanation. The incidents of the night to his mind admitted but one explanation. Despite her American name (which might well have been assumed) the girl was a Russian, and he who says Russia nowadays connotes revolution, plots, arrests, and all the rest of the melodrama. The girl might be a nihilist or she might be a police spy, but he was sure that she must be one or the other. And Wilkins was her enemy. She had recognized him as such--not at first, but toward the end, when he had tricked her by his feint of throwing the letter in the fire. Caruth remembered her every word. And he had left her alone! How did he know that Wilkins had gone? How did he know that he had not concealed himself and waited---- Slow and long-drawn-out when written down, the sequence of events with all its possibilities flashed like lightning through his mind. His hair rose upon his head, and the sweat stood out upon his forehead. His heart thumped furiously! Scarcely could he comprehend the words of the watchman. Yet that individual was cursing roundly. “I’d like to know who in h----’s setting leaky pots out on that escape,” he finished. “Dropping stuff on a man’s clothes and spoilin’----” The voice died away in an inarticulate murmur, and Caruth saw the man’s face blanch as he held out his hand. “It’s blood,” he hissed. “Blood! Blood! Somebody’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig up there. Somebody’s been murdered.” He ran down the hall and pressed the button of a police call. Then he came hurrying back. “Here; you!” he shouted, his respectful manner falling from him like a garment. “Chase up them steps to the third floor and meet me at the window. On your way, now, Willie!” Caruth came out of his trance and sped up the main stairway as the watchman ran up the fire-escape. One flight--two flights--three flights! Along the hall he rushed and threw open the window, just as the watchman reached it from below. The electric lights threw a white glare upon the grating and upon a human form huddled across it in a strange, unnatural shape. The light fell upon the livid face and staring eyes and upon the dark spot that marred the whiteness of the open shirt bosom. Caruth drew his breath sobbingly. For the body was not that which he had feared to see.