I looked cautiously through the other rooms on the first floor. They
were as bare as the main room. The only room in the whole house that
held a trace of furniture or occupancy must be the one from which I had
escaped. It seemed that an elaborate trap had been set for my benefit
with such precautions that I could not prove that it ever had been.

There was, however, no time to waste in prying into this mystery. By my
watch it was close on nine o'clock, and Doddridge Knapp might even now
be making his way to the office where he had stationed me.

The saloon's front doors were locked fast, but the side door that led
from the stairway to the street was fastened only with a spring lock,
and I swung it open and stepped to the sidewalk.

A load left my spirits as the door closed behind me. The fresh air of
the morning was like wine after the close and musty atmosphere I had
been breathing.

The street was but a prosaic place after the haunt of mystery I had
just left. It was like stepping from the Dark Ages into the nineteenth
century. Yet there was something puzzling about it. The street had no
suggestion of the familiar, and it appeared somehow to have been turned
end for end. I had lost my sense of direction. The hills were where the
bay ought to be. I seemed to have changed sides of the street, and it
took me a little time to readjust the points of the compass. I reasoned
at last that Dicky Nahl had led me to the street below before turning
to the place, and I had not noticed that we had doubled on our course.

I hurried along the streets with but a three-minute stop to swallow a