At nine he called the adoring hall-boy, gave him a quarter with minute instructions, and saw him disappear into the hallway of Number 205. Three minutes later the boy was back, breathless but enthusiastic. "Missis Simmons," he explained between gasps, "says she ain't never heard of nobody named Maitland. Somebody rang her bell a while ago an' apologized for disturbin' her--said he wanted the folks on the top floor. I guess yer man went acrost the roofs: them houses is all connected, and yuh c'n walk clear from the corner here tuh half-way up tuh Nineteenth Street, on Sain' Nicholas Avenoo." "Uh-huh," laconically returned the detective. "Thanks." And turning on his heel, walked westward. The policeman crossed the street to detain him for a moment's chat. "I guess it's all off, Jim," Hickey told him. "Some one must've tipped that crook off. Anyway, I ain't goin' to wait no longer." "I wouldn't neither," agreed the uniformed member. "Say, who's yer friend yeh was talkin' tuh, 'while ago?" "Oh, a frien' of mine. Yeh didn't have no call to git excited then, Jim. G'night." And Hickey proceeded westward, a listless and preoccupied man by the vacant eye of him. But when he emerged into the glare of Eighth Avenue his face was unusually red. Which may have been due to the heat. And just before boarding a down-town surface car, "Oh," he enunciated with gusto, "_hell_!" * * * * * One A. M. Not until the rich and mellow chime had merged into the stillness did the intruder dare again to draw breath. Coming as it had the very moment that the door had closed noiselessly behind her, the double stroke had sounded to her like a knell: or, perhaps more like the prelude to the wild alarum of a tocsin, first striking her heart still with terror, then urging it into panic flutterings. But these, as the minutes drew on, marked only by the dull methodic ticking of the clock, quieted; and at length she mustered courage to move from the door, against which she had flattened herself, one hand clutching the knob, ready to pull it open and fly upon the first aggressive sound. In the interval her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. The study door showed a pale oblong on her right; to her left, and a little toward the rear of the flat, the door of Maitland's bed-chamber stood ajar. To this she tiptoed, standing upon the threshold and listening with every fiber of her being. No sounds as of the regular respiration of a sleeper warning her, she at length peered stealthily within; simultaneously she pressed the button of an electric hand-lamp. Its circumscribed blaze wavered over pillows and counterpane spotless and undisturbed. Then for the first time she breathed freely, convinced that she had been right in surmising that Maitland would not return that night.