Oriental shop. The servant who admitted him verified his hazard. At this hour the occupants were at work. She was, for the present, alone in the house.
Garth showed her his badge, warned her to make no noise, and to stay close to him. The girl, frightened and unable to comprehend, followed him into the basement. He paced from the front of the house along the wall to a point which, according to his calculations, was opposite the hidden portion of the shop. He glanced up then with satisfaction. Against a thin and antiquated partition was suspended one of those heavy and unwieldy gas meters which are found only in very old buildings.
Garth drew up a table, climbed upon it, and examined the thick screws which held the contrivance in place. With his screwdriver he commenced noiselessly to remove one of these. He thought it likely that the screw hole would go all the way through. If it did not, his auger would complete the journey. He instructed the girl to draw the blinds and close the door so that the room would be darker. He pulled the screw from the rotten wall. The aperture was sufficiently large. It admitted the repellent odor he had noticed in the shop; so he put his eye to the hole and waited for his brain to accustom itself to these new conditions.
The drone of voices reached him, but at first he could see very little—shadowy outlines circling a dull, glowing thing close to the floor—a brazier, he decided, about which men sat. Then he started,
