"On the second floor at the back on the Forty ----th street side." "He must have been a funny sight here in the lobby with his old hand-me-downs." "He seldom showed himself here. He went in and out by his private entrance on Forty ----th street." "So he had a private entrance, eh?" "Yes, it was a regular thing to see him going in and out carrying his little oil-can." "Oil-can!" "Well, you see, when he rented the hotel to the management, he saved out his rooms rent free, but there wasn't anything said about steam heat or electric current, and when the management sent him a bill for heat and light, he made them take out the radiators and the fixtures, and he burned an oil lamp and a little oil heater." "Here, in the Madagascar! Well, that beats all!" "It sure does!" In this little colloquy Jack had learned all that he desired. It was a simple matter to leave the hotel, turn the corner into Forty ----th street and proceed to the private entrance. It was at the extreme end of the hotel building, a modest door with the street numeral painted on it. Adjoining the hotel on this side was a deserted dwelling with boarded up windows below, and blinds pulled down above, the whole bearing the signs of long neglect. One of Jack's keys fitted the door. Inside he found a single flight of stairs ending on a dark landing with another door. This door was not locked. Opening it he found himself in the sitting-room of the suite, a small room with two windows looking out on the street he had just left. It was a typical hotel room, furnished by contract expensively but without taste. An amusingly incongruous note was furnished by the oil heater in the center of the rug, and the cheap lamp on the table. The naked ugliness of the latter object was not even mitigated by a shade. There was nothing to suggest that the room had been a man's home for several years, no personal belongings of any description. Yet it was neat enough, and Jack guessed that Silas Gyde's arrangement with the hotel must have included maid service. From the bedroom there was a door to the hotel corridor, through which servants might have entered. This bedroom and a bathroom, both almost entirely without light or air, completed the suite. Jack had no difficulty in believing that it was one of the least desirable apartments in the hotel. Jack's first glance around revealed nothing out of the common. The only signs of human occupancy were a few cheap toilet articles on the bureau. But there were several closets. That in the bedroom was locked. Opening it with one of his keys, Jack was faced by his first surprise--a modern and highly efficient steel vault door.