"One of the staff in the flats at George Street always got his supper ready for him--some cold meat, bread and cheese, and half a pint of beer, which the lift-boy invariably fetched for him from the Crown and Sceptre round the corner. He prepared his own breakfast in the morning, and his other meals he took in Sackville Street. They were sent in from one of the cheaper restaurants in Piccadilly. "Every morning the charwoman who cleaned the steps outside the block of flats in George Street would see Ruggles come out of the house and walk away in the direction of Sackville Street. Even on Sundays he would stroll round as far as the shop to see that everything was all right. "It was on a snowy morning in January that the charwoman failed to see Ruggles at his accustomed time. As the quiet neighbourhood did not as a rule lend itself much to gossip, the present opportunity was not to be missed. The charwoman, on meeting with the lift-boy, imparted to him the priceless news that Mr. Ruggles must either be ill or had gone and overslept himself. Whereupon the lift-boy was ready with the startling information that he had just observed that one of the glass panels in the front door of Sir James Narford's flat was broken. 'The glass wasn't broke in the evening, ten-thirty,' he went on to say, 'when I took a party down who'd been visitin' Miss Jenkins.' "It seems that Miss Jenkins was maid to a lady who had a flat on the same floor as Sir James Narford. But there was the length of a passage with staircase and lift between the two flats, and neither the lady nor the maid, when spoken to by the lift-boy about the broken glass panel, had heard anything during the night. Now all this seemed very strange, more especially as the morning hours wore on and there was still no sign of Mr. Ruggles. The lift-boy was kept busy for the next hour taking the staff of the service flats up and down in his lift, as every one wished to have a look at the broken panel, and wanted to add their quota of opinion as to what had gone on last night in Sir James Narford's flat. At ten o'clock the housekeeper, more responsible or more enterprising than the rest of the staff, resolved to knock at the flat door. No answer came. She then tried to peep through the broken glass panel, and to apply her ear to it. For a time all was silence. The charwoman, the lift-boy, the scullery-maid, and the head housemaid stood by on the landing, holding their breath. Suddenly they all gave a simultaneous gasp! A groan--distinctly a groan--was heard issuing from inside the flat! The group of watchers looked at one another in dismay. 'What's to be done?' they murmured.