“You must go first,” she whimpered. “I daren’t. It was white ... but with a black face. It was at the window.” Cecil, getting a candle, obeyed. And having penetrated alone into the lady’s chamber, he perceived, to begin with, that a pane had been pushed out of the window by the old, noiseless device of a sheet of treacled paper, and then, examining the window more closely, he saw that, outside, a silk ladder depended from the roof and trailed in the balcony. “Come in without fear,” he said to the trembling widow. “It must have been someone with more appetite than a ghost that you saw. Perhaps an Arab.” She came in, femininely trusting to him; and between them they ascertained that she had lost a watch, sixteen rings, an opal necklace, and some money. Mrs. Macalister would not say how much money. “My resources are slight,” she remarked. “I was expecting remittances.” Cecil thought: “This is not merely in the grand manner. If it fulfils its promise, it will prove to be one of the greatest things of the age.” He asked her to keep cool, not to be afraid, and to dress herself. Then he returned to his room and dressed as quickly as he could. The hotel was absolutely quiet, but out of the depths below came the sound of a clock striking four. When, adequately but not æsthetically attired, he opened his door again, another door near by also opened, and Cecil saw a man’s head. “I say,” drawled the man’s head, “excuse me, but have _you_ noticed anything?” “Why? What?” “Well, I’ve been robbed!” The Englishman laughed awkwardly, apologetically, as though ashamed to have to confess that he had been victimised. “Much?” Cecil inquired. “Two hundred or so. No joke, you know.” “So have I been robbed,” said Cecil. “Let us go downstairs. Got a candle? These corridors are usually lighted all night.” “Perhaps our thief has been at the switches,” said the Englishman. “Say our thieves,” Cecil corrected. “You think there was more than one?” “I think there were more than half a dozen,” Cecil replied. The Englishman was dressed, and the two descended together, candles in hand, forgetting the lone lady. But the lone lady had no intention of being forgotten, and she came after them, almost screaming. They had not reached the ground floor before three other doors had opened and three other victims proclaimed themselves. Cecil led the way through the splendid saloons, now so ghostly in their elegance, which only three hours before had been the illuminated scene of such polite revelry. Ere he reached the entrance-hall, where a solitary jet was burning, the assistant-concierge (one of those officials who seem never to sleep) advanced towards him, demanding in his broken English what was the matter. “There have been thieves in the hotel,” said Cecil. “Waken the concierge.”