“Let me see if I can describe him. He was about thirty, and had the complexion and figure of a consumptive, but his eye shone with the yellow glare of a beast of prey, and in the cadaverous hollows of his ashen cheeks and amid the lines about his thin drawn lips there lay for all his conciliatory smile, an expression so cold and yet so ferocious that I spotted him at once as the man to whose genius we were indebted for the new scheme of murder which I was jeopardizing my life to understand. But I allowed none of the repugnance with which he inspired me to appear in my manner, and, greeting him with half a nod, waited for him to speak. His voice had that smooth quality which betrays the hypocrite. “‘Has the gentleman an appointment here?’ he asked, letting his glance fall for the merest instant on the lapel of my coat. “I returned a decided affirmative. Or rather, I went on, with a meaning look he evidently comprehended, ‘my son has, and I have made up my mind to know just what deviltry he is up to these days. You see I can make it worth your while to give me the opportunity.’ “‘O, I see,’ he assented with a glance at the pocketbook I had just drawn out. ‘You want a private room from which you can watch the young scapegrace. I understand, I understand. But the private rooms are above. Gentlemen are not comfortable here.’ “‘I should say not,’ I murmured, and drew from the pocketbook a bill which I slid quietly into his hand. ‘Now take me where I shall be safe,’ I suggested, ‘and yet in full sight of the room where the young gentlemen play. I wish to catch him at his tricks. Afterwards----’ “‘All will be well,’ he finished smoothly, with another glance at my blue ribbon. ‘You see I do not ask you the young gentleman’s name. I take your money and leave all the rest to you. Only don’t make a scandal, I pray, for my house has the name of being quiet.’ “‘Yes,’ thought I, ‘too quiet!’ and for an instant felt my spirits fail me. But it was only for an instant. I had friends about me and a pistol at half cock in the pocket of my overcoat. Why should I fear any surprise, prepared as I was for every emergency? “‘I will show you up in a moment,’ said he; and left me to put up a heavy board-shutter over the window opening on the river. Was this a signal or a precaution? I glanced towards my two friends playing cards, took another note of their broad shoulders and brawny arms, and prepared to follow my host, who now stood bowing at the other end of the room, before a covered staircase which was manifestly the sole means of reaching the floor above.