A glance showed it to be unoccupied.

Gray ran across to the mushrabiyeh cabinet and jerked the curtains
aside. There was no one in the cabinet. It contained a chair and a
table. Upon the latter was a telephone and some papers and books.
"This way!" he cried, his voice high pitched and unnatural.

He burst through the doorway into the inner room which he had seen
Mrs. Irvin enter. The air was laden with the smell of frankincense.

"A lantern!" he called. "I left one on the divan."

But Monte Irvin had caught it up and was already at his elbow. His
hand was shaking so that the light danced wildly now upon the carpet,
now upon the green walls. This room also was deserted. A black gap in
the curtain showed where the material had been roughly torn. Suddenly:

"My God, look!" muttered the Inspector, who, with the others, now
stood in the curious draped apartment.

A thin stream of blood was trickling out from beneath the torn
hangings!

Monte Irvin staggered and fell back against the Inspector, clutching
at him for support. But Sergeant Burton, who carried the second
lantern, crossed the room and wrenched the green draperies bodily from
their fastenings.

They had masked a wooden partition or stout screen, having an aperture