“I can't stand this,” he began, but almost as he spoke sprang back into the shadow, for the panel of gold was again cut out of the black house front, and the burly figure of Basil was silhouetted against it coming out. He was roaring with laughter and talking so loudly that you could have heard every syllable across the street. Another voice, or, possibly, two voices, were laughing and talking back at him from within. “No, no, no,” Basil was calling out, with a sort of hilarious hostility. “That's quite wrong. That's the most ghastly heresy of all. It's the soul, my dear chap, the soul that's the arbiter of cosmic forces. When you see a cosmic force you don't like, trick it, my boy. But I must really be off.” “Come and pitch into us again,” came the laughing voice from out of the house. “We still have some bones unbroken.” “Thanks very much, I will--good night,” shouted Grant, who had by this time reached the street. “Good night,” came the friendly call in reply, before the door closed. “Basil,” said Rupert Grant, in a hoarse whisper, “what are we to do?” The elder brother looked thoughtfully from one of us to the other. “What is to be done, Basil?” I repeated in uncontrollable excitement. “I'm not sure,” said Basil doubtfully. “What do you say to getting some dinner somewhere and going to the Court Theatre tonight? I tried to get those fellows to come, but they couldn't.” We stared blankly. “Go to the Court Theatre?” repeated Rupert. “What would be the good of that?” “Good? What do you mean?” answered Basil, staring also. “Have you turned Puritan or Passive Resister, or something? For fun, of course.” “But, great God in Heaven! What are we going to do, I mean!” cried Rupert. “What about the poor woman locked up in that house? Shall I go for the police?” Basil's face cleared with immediate comprehension, and he laughed. “Oh, that,” he said. “I'd forgotten that. That's all right. Some mistake, possibly. Or some quite trifling private affair. But I'm sorry those fellows couldn't come with us. Shall we take one of these green omnibuses? There is a restaurant in Sloane Square.” “I sometimes think you play the fool to frighten us,” I said irritably. “How can we leave that woman locked up? How can it be a mere private affair? How can crime and kidnapping and murder, for all I know, be private affairs? If you found a corpse in a man's drawing-room, would you think it bad taste to talk about it just as if it was a confounded dado or an infernal etching?” Basil laughed heartily. “That's very forcible,” he said. “As a matter of fact, though, I know it's all right in this case. And there comes the green omnibus.” “How do you know it's all right in this ease?” persisted his brother angrily.