“MY GOD!” said Freyberger. “You!”

“Let me get up,” said the other. “Yes, it is I; we have both been mistaken it seems.”

Freyberger said nothing, but rose to his feet and flung the extinguished match away. They were again in darkness, but the detective did not strike another light.

For a moment he was too angry for speech. Certain in his own mind that he was dealing with Klein, triumphant at having captured him, his feelings may be imagined when he found beneath him, not the criminal for whom he had been seeking, but the interloper, Hellier.

Hellier had also risen to his feet.

“Strike a light,” he said, “and let me see where I am. I am giddy from that fall.”

“I will strike no light,” replied the other, in a hard voice “you can explain yourself in the darkness. You have cast enough darkness on this business already. You ought to be used to darkness; come, explain yourself.”

“Explain what?” said Hellier, in an irritable voice. “It seems to me the explanation is clear enough.”

“Make it clearer. What are you doing here? What are you meddling in police affairs for? Eh! You are one of those confounded people who fancy themselves, one of those people who will not see where their own business lies. What are you doing here?”

“Seems to me, I’m talking to a fool,” replied the other. “You know well enough why I am here. I came here to find a mutual acquaintance of ours named Klein. If not to find him, at least, to find traces of him and to inspect the premises. You told me this morning you did not think he had been here, yet I find you here on the same job as myself; if you had only been frank this would not have happened.”

“Well,” replied the other, “you have been here a............