way of introduction, and raised the lamp to look more closely at me.

Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and I knew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that lay upon the floor.

I realized the woman was about to scream, so I seized her by the wrist. She had disgusting hands, fat and podgy and covered with rings.

"Quiet!" I whispered fiercely in her ear, never relaxing my grip on her wrist. "You will be quiet and come in here, do you understand?"

She sought to shrink from me, but I held her fast and drew her into the room.

She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. She seemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longer frightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all for herself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When she spoke her manner was almost business-like.

"I was told nothing of this," she said. "Who is it? What do you want me to do?"

Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that makes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.

Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She became polite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became her vastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost with reverence, as it seemed to me. She said, in a purring voice:

"Ach, so! I did not understand. The gentleman must excuse me."

And she purred again:

"So!"

It was then I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon my chest. I followed their direction.

They rested on the silver badge I had stuck in my braces.

I understood and held my peace. Silence was my only trump until I knew how the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all I wanted to know.

In fact, she began to speak again.

"I expected you," she said, "but not... this. Who is it this time? A Frenchman, eh?"

I shook my head.

"An Englishman," I said curtly.

Her eyes opened in wonder.

"Ach, nein!" she cried—and you would have said her voice vibrated with pleasure—"An Englishman! Ei, ei!"

If ever a human being licked its chops, that woman did.

She wagged her head and repeated to herself:

"Ei, ei !" adding, as if to explain her surprise, "he is the first we have had.

"You brought him here, eh! But why up here? Or did der Stelze send him?"

She fired this string of questions at me without pausing for a reply. She continued:

"I was out, but Karl told me. There was another came, too: Franz sent him."

"This is he," I said. "I caught him prying in my room and he died."

"Ach!" she ejaculated ... and in her voice was all the world of admiration that a German woman feels for brute man.... "The Herr Englander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak to Franz. The man drinks too much. He is always drunk. He makes mistakes. It will not do. I will...."

"I wish you to do nothing against Franz," I said. "This Englishman spoke German well: Karl will tell you."

"As the gentleman wishes," was the woman's reply in a voice so silky and so servile that I felt my gorge rise.

"She looks like a slug!" I said to myself, as she stood there, fat and sleek and horrible.

"Here are his passport and other papers," I said, bending down and taking them from the dead man's pocket. "He was an English officer, you see?" And I unfolded the little black book stamped with the Royal Arms.

She leant forward and I was all but stifled with the stale odour of the patchouli with which her faded body was drenched.

Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame of the candle.

"But we always keep them!" expostulated the hotel-keeper.

"This passport must die with the man," I replied firmly. "He must not be traced. I want no awkward enquiries made, you understand. Therefore ..." and I flung the burning mass of papers into the grate.

"Good, good!" said the German and put her lamp down on the table. "There was a telephone message for you," she added, "to say that der Stelze will come at eight in the morning to receive what you have brought."

The deuce! This was getting awkward. Who the devil was Stelze?

"Coming at eight is he?" I said, simply for the sake of saying something.

"Jawohl!" replied Frau Schratt. "He was here already this morning. He was nervous, oh! very, and expected you to be here. Already two days he is waiting here to go on."

"So," I said, "he is going to take ... it on with him, is he?" (I knew where he was "going on" to, well enough: he was going to see that document safe into Germany.)

There was a malicious ring in the woman's voice when she spoke of Stelze. I thought I might profit by this. So I drew her out.

"So Stelze called to-day and gave you his orders, did he?" I said, "and ... and took charge of things generally, eh?"

Her little eyes snapped viciously.

"Ach!" she said, "der Stelze is der Stelze. He has power; he has authority; he can make and unmake men. But I ... I in my time have broken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schratt that ... that ..."

She raised her voice hysterically, but broke off before she could finish the sentence. I saw she thought she had said too much.

"He won't play that game with me," I said. Strength is the quality that every German, man, woman and child, respects, and strength alone. My safety depended on my showing this ignoble creature that I received orders from no one. "You know what he is. One runs the risk, one takes trouble, one is successful. Then he steps in and gathers the laurels. No, I am not going to wait for him."

The hotel-keeper sprang to her feet, her faded face all ravaged by the shadow of a great fear.

"You wouldn't dare!" she said.

"I would," I retorted. "I've done my work and I'll report to head-quarters and to no one else!"

My eyes fell upon the body.

"Now, what are we going to do with this?" I said. "You must help me, Frau Schratt. This is serious. This must not be found here."

She looked up at me in surprise.

"That?" she said, and she kicked the body with her foot. "Oh, that will be all right with die Schratt! 'It must not be found here'" (she mimicked my grave tone). "It will not be found here, young man!"

And she chuckled with all the full-bodied good humour of a fat person.

"You mean?"

"I mean what I mean, young man, and what you mean," she replied. "When they are in a difficulty, when there are complications, when there is any unpleasantness.. like this ... they remember die Schratt, 'die fesche Anna,' as they called me once, and it is 'gnadige Frau' here and 'gnadige Frau' there and a diamond bracelet or a pearl ring, if only I will do the little conjuring trick that will smooth everything over. But when all goes well, then I am 'old Schratt,' 'old hag,' 'old woman,' and I must take my orders and beg nicely and ... bah!"

Her words ended in a gulp, which in any other woman would have been a sob.

Then she added in her hard harlot's voice:

"You needn't worry your head about him, there! Leave him to me! It's my trade!"

At those words, which covered God only knows what horrors of midnight disappearances, of ghoulish rites with packing-case and sack, in the dark cellars of that evil house, I felt that, could I but draw back from the enterprise to which I had so rashly committed myself, I would do so gladly. Only then did I begin to realize something of the utter ruthlessness, the cold, calculating ferocity, of the most bitter and most powerful enemy which the British Empire has ever had.

But it was too late to withdraw now. The die was cast. Destiny,