For a space Mathison did not stir. There was something hypnotic in this singular visitation, but it was physical rather than mental. He stared at the blank square of the window as Medusa\'s victims must have stared at her—stonily. Morgan had described the woman minutely, and out of these substances and delineations Mathison had created a blonde Judith, something at once beautiful and terrifying. And yet he recognized the woman almost immediately.

The mind often acts inconsequently in crises. At the back of his brain something was clamoring for recognition. He was conscious of the call, but there seemed to be a blank wall in between. It was conceivable that the sheer loveliness of the woman dazed him. On his guard, yes, alert and watchful, but otherwise nonplussed. His confusion was doubtless due to the fact that he could not put the two salients [Pg 136]together. It was utterly illogical that any woman so tenderly beautiful should be called The Yellow Typhoon.

He recalled Morgan\'s description. "A passionless, merciless leopardess. She would have curled Saint Anthony\'s beard and taken Michael\'s flaming sword away from him. A destroyer. Don\'t get the impression that she is what we call on the loose. That\'s the most singular part of it. Her reputation isn\'t along that line. Breaks men for the pure deviltry of it; honorable men, men too proud to fight back. Understand? Always the poor devil who has something or everything to lose. A bigamist, because that seemed to be the most exciting game she could apply her arts to. And always just beyond the reach of the law. I don\'t suppose there\'s a court in the world that could convict her of bigamy. So, keep your eyes open and your guard up. Remember, I wanted to ransack the ship."

And what kind of a game was she about to spring? She had warned him. But she had added that she might return; and in that event, let him beware. He thought keenly for a moment, and presently he saw a way out of the labyrinth. Very clever![Pg 137] His enemies were in the adjoining rooms, watching him from some peephole or other. A trick to make him take the manila envelope out of his kit-bag and hide it anew—where they could find it when they wanted it. He had made his first mistake. He should have deposited the envelope in the safe before coming up. The hesitance over inscribing his name—any name—on the register had befogged him temporarily. His whole carefully built campaign depended upon getting that manila envelope to New York.

What followed was a revelation in clear thinking, acted upon swiftly.

He pulled down the window, locked it, and drew the shade. He got into his clothes again, dropped the automatic into the right pocket of his coat, all the while taking inventory of his surroundings in panoramic glances. Not a step wasted, not a thought that needed readjusting. Under the telephone was a waste-basket. In this there was a discarded newspaper. He crossed the room and turned off the lights. What he did now was done in the dark. From one of the kit-bags he procured the manila envelope and the little red book, which he strapped together with a rubber band. He[Pg 138] tiptoed over to the waste-basket and slipped his precious packet into the folds of the newspaper, which he returned to the basket. He turned on the lights and took down the telephone.

"Hello!" he called, softly. "This is room three hundred and twenty. Will you kindly ascertain for me if rooms three eighteen and three twenty-two are occupied by passengers from the stalled flier from Chicago?... Yes, I\'ll hold the wire." Two minutes passed. "They are not? Thank you. No; nothing of importance. Didn\'t know but they might be friends from the train." So there was nothing to fear from the adjoining rooms. That was a weight off his mind.

But it was also a new angle to the puzzle. Had the woman really tried to do him a service? Was it inspired by some vague regret for Hallowell? Out of one labyrinth, but into another. He ran to the windows and threw up the shades. The fire-escape was empty. He went back to the telephone. It was barely possible that she had come up from the room below. That would be 220.

"Is the lady still in room two twenty?...[Pg 139] Oh, never mind the name. Is she still there?... She isn\'t? Gave up the key a moment ago?... No, there isn\'t any trouble. She came from the stalled train.... She said she would not return? Thanks."

A blind alley. He couldn\'t solve the riddle at all. And because he couldn\'t solve it he sensed danger, a danger which ran around him in a circle.

He glanced up at the bird on the curtain-pole. Malachi had finished his dinner and was polishing his beak.

"Malachi, they\'ve got me guessing!"

"Chup!" said the little green bird, spreading out his clipped wing. It was warm and cozy up there near the ceiling. He loved window-curtain poles. "Mat, you lubber, where\'s my tobacco?"

That phrase! It seemed to Mathison that a hand had reached out and caught him by the throat. Bob! The dear, absent-minded Hallowell! How often had he teased him by putting his tobacco-canister on the other end of the table! Bob, blind if you stirred anything on his end of the table from its accustomed place, would start hunting about the room, swearing good-naturedly.

[Pg 140]

Mathison began to pace the room. The infernal beauty of her! Negative for good and positive for evil; somehow it hurt him. He felt outraged that God should give all these lovely attributes to a daughter of Beelzebub.

Down-stairs, the clerk went into the manager\'s office.

"I tell you something queer is going on in this hotel."

"What now?"

"The Lord Mayor of London makes waiters signal on his door before he\'ll let them in. Then he begins asking questions about the people on either side of him. To cap the climax, he asked about the woman who had her head cut off in 1793."

"What? Oh yes, I see; those names on the register. Well?"

"Something fishy. The woman just surrendered her key and waltzed out."

"Gone?"

"With last year\'s cabbages."

"Maybe it\'s an elopement," suggested the manager, hopefully. Elopements were first-rate advertisements.

"Nix on the elopement. The real article gets married before they come to a hotel[Pg 141] like the Watkins. She went up to the room I gave her and came down again. No complaints. Just surrendered the key and faded."

"Didn\'t ask any questions about the man?"

"Nope. There\'s where the mystery comes in. Mind, we\'ll have a robbery or a murder on our hands before morning."

"Piffle! If the woman is gone for good we can\'t risk meddling with this Lord Mayor chap. I\'m not courting suits for damages these days; not me. You\'ve been going to the movies too much. Anyhow, she paid five for the room. It\'s none of our business if she doesn\'t sleep in it."

"All right. Only, don\'t jump on me if anything happens."

"Tell your troubles to the house detective. That\'s what he\'s here for."

The clerk acted on this advice at once. "Michaels," he said, "you take this key and look around room two twenty. See if the woman took or left anything. There\'s a queer game going on here to-night."

The house detective returned shortly. He doubted if any one had been in room 220 at all.

[Pg 142]

"Better stick around, anyhow."

"All right."

At the police-station the night captain rocked in his swivel-chair and chewed his cigar. There had recurred to his mind an old phrase, which applied to the crook as well as to the honest man, "He travels fastest who travels alone." Well, so long as it was fish to his net, he had no right to complain. On his desk lay a stack of those sinister handbills which the police send hither and thither across the continent under the caption "Wanted." From time to time he referred to a letter which he had just received by messenger. A fall-down on the divvy, and the pal blows the game. But a thousand dollars, a real bank-roll, was worth trying for these hard times. All he had to do was to call up the Watkins. If there was anything to the information, the hotel clerk would be able to tell. He drew the telephone toward him.

"This the Watkins?... Police-station talking. Man by the name of Richard Whittington registered?... He is? Good! Listen to me. Describe him." The captain smoothed out a handbill and kept his eye on it obliquely. "All right. Tall,[Pg 143] very dark, good-looking, blue eyes, smooth, no beard. Yes, that sounds like him.... \'Black\' Ellison, wanted in San Francisco for diamond robbery and assault.... There was a woman? Gone? That\'s tough. She may have taken the swag. Well, it can\'t be helped. Get the man down-stairs to the private office. I\'ll send Murphy over in fifteen minutes. Better call in a patrolman. This man Ellison is a strong-arm, for all his good looks."

Up in room 320 Mathison found it impossible to keep that lovely face out of his thoughts. Something was wrong with the world. If ever he had looked into a countenance upon which was written honesty....

"The voice!" he cried, stopping suddenly. "The voice! That\'s the thing that\'s been hammering in the back of my head. I\'ve heard that voice before. Where? How?" He rumpled his hair. "Where have I heard her voice?"

He had heard her laugh that night when she had come on deck in the Chinese costume. But the speaking voice! Where had he heard that?

Malachi, sensing his master\'s agitation, sidled back and forth along the [Pg 144]curtain-pole, grumbling as his feet came into contact with the cold brass rings.

By and by Mathison saw the paper lady on the floor; saw it with eyes busy with introspection. He stooped; the act was purely mechanical. He went on with his pacing. He folded and refolded the slip of paper many times and at length stowed it away in a pocket, without having glanced at it once, without recalling his desire to meet her, if she happened to be in New York when he arrived there.

He heard a sound. It came from the window. He wheeled quickly, his hand going into his pocket as he turned. He had almost forgotten!

Tap-tap-tap!

Dimly he saw a woman\'s face against the pane. She had come back! The monumental nerve of her! On the way to the window he formed his plan of action. He would give her all the rope she wanted; he would act as if he had never seen her before, play her as a fisherman plays a trout. She had warned him, and he would not ignore her warning. He ran to the window, unlocked it, and threw it up.

The woman stumbled into the room, the[Pg 145] expression on her face one of great terror. Hair like spun molasses, sparkling with melting snowflakes, skin like Carrara marble, with an odd little mole at the corner of her mouth, and eyes as purple as Manila Bay at sunset. From her shoulders hung a sable coat worth a king\'s ransom. Mathison raised her to her feet. "What is it? What\'s the trouble?" he asked, pulling forward a chair. Terrified. Had they discovered what she had done and had she flown to him for protection? "Beware of me!" she had said.

She sank into the chair and covered her face with her ungloved hands, rocking her body and moaning slightly.

"What\'s the trouble?" It took some effort to keep the ironical out of his voice. What a queer little mole! he thought. He hadn\'t noticed it before.

She let her hands fall. "I\'m in the most horribly embarrassing situation," she panted. She clasped her hands on her knees and the fingers began to snarl and twist, as they will when a body is under great mental stress. "You won\'t mind if I stay here a few minutes?"

"Not in the least, provided you give me[Pg 146] an idea what\'s happened to drive you into this room." Mathison put both hands into the side-pockets of his coat.

"Couldn\'t it be possible to stay without explaining?" she pleaded.

Not a sign that she had been in this room less than half an hour gone. What was her game? Mathison, from the ironical spirit, passed into one of bewilderment. Her voice wasn\'t quite the same, either; it was higher, thinner. He was giving her rope, but so far she wasn\'t making any especial effort to gather it in. Very well; he would continue to play up to her lead and see where it led. But stretch his imagination to its fullest, he could not figure out what her game was.

He answered her query. "Supposing you were found here? I don\'t object, mind you; only, I\'d like to know how to act should occasion arise."

"I ... I don\'t know how to begin! It will sound so silly and futile!" she faltered. Her gaze roved rather wildly about. "My husband ... he has the most violent temper and is most insanely jealous. Somehow he learned I was here—in the restaurant. I saw him as he entered the main entrance.[Pg 147] I tried to slip out at the side ... but I was not quick enough. By this time he will have had the whole hotel by the ears. Oh, it is degrading—shameful!" The woman turned her head against her shoulder and closed her eyes. Mathison noted the plain gold band among the gems on her fingers. "I haven\'t done anything wrong. I like amusement; I like clothes.... I can\'t stand it much longer!... He keeps me shut up all the time. What\'s the good of clothes if you can\'t wear them? I can\'t go anywhere, I can\'t do anything! I wish I were dead!"

Maddening! He wanted to take hold of her and shake her. But he said, soothingly: "You don\'t wish that. You ought not to have run away."

"I know, but I couldn\'t stand a scene among all those people. I see now I\'ve only made it worse by running!... I got into the parlor somehow. Then I saw the fire-escape. I stepped out and closed the window, but I found I didn\'t dare drop twelve feet or more to the sidewalk."

Mathison nodded. There was nothing else to do.

"And I made the fire-escape just in[Pg 148] time. He came storming into the parlor, followed by a clerk and a bellboy. The shame of it! None of them thought to look out. I\'d have been frozen but for this coat. Then it came to me—I was so desperate!—that I might find a window open if I climbed up.... And I saw you. I sha\'n\'t bother you more than ten minutes.... Just enough time to get my nerves steadied. If he doesn\'t find me soon he\'ll go home. I can stand a scene there."

"Where\'s the other man? A fine chap, to leave you in the lurch like this!" cried Mathison, indignantly.

Her eyes opened; they expressed dismay. "Oh, but I wasn............