It was not until the following evening that I found leisure to examine my strange acquisition, for affairs of more immediate importance engrossed my attention. But at about ten o'clock I seated myself at my table, lighted the lamp, and taking out the pigtail from the table drawer, placed it on the blotting-pad and began to examine it with the greatest curiosity, for few Chinese affect the pigtail nowadays.  
I had scarcely commenced my examination, however, when it was dramatically interrupted. The door bell commenced to ring jerkily. I stood up, and as I did so the ringing ceased and in its place came a muffled beating on the door. I hurried into the passage as the bell commenced ringing again, and I had almost reached the door when once more the ringing ceased; but now I could hear a woman's voice, low but agitated:
 
“Open the door! Oh, for God's sake be quick!”
 
Completely mystified, and not a little alarmed, I threw open the door, and in there staggered a woman heavily veiled, so that I could see little of her features, but by the lines of her figure I judged her to be young.
 
Uttering a sort of moan of terror she herself closed the door, and stood with her back to it, watching me through the thick veil, while her breast rose and fell tumultuously.
 
“Thank God there was someone at home!” she gasped.
 
I think I may say with justice that I had never been so surprised in my life; every particular of the incident marked it as unique—set it apart from the episodes of everyday life.
 
“Madam,” I began doubtfully, “you seem to be much alarmed at something, and if I can be of any assistance to you———”
 
“You have saved my life!” she whispered, and pressed one hand to her bosom. “In a moment I will explain.”
 
“Won't you rest a little after your evidently alarming experience?” I suggested.
 
My strange visitor nodded, without speaking, and I conducted her to the study which I had just left, and placed the most comfortable arm-chair close beside the table so that as I sat I might study this woman who so strangely had burst in upon me. I even tilted the shaded lamp, artlessly, a trick I had learned from Harley, in order that the light might fall upon her face.
 
She may have detected this device; I know not; but as if in answer to its challenge, she raised her gloved hands and unfastened the heavy veil which had concealed her features.
 
Thereupon I found myself looking into a pair of lustrous black eyes whose almond shape was that of the Orient; I found myself looking at a woman who, since she was evidently a Jewess, was probably no older than eighteen or nineteen, but whose beauty was ripely voluptuous, who might fittingly have posed for Salome, who, despite her modern fashionable garments, at once suggested to my mind the wanton beauty of the daughter of Herodias.
 
I stared at her silently for a time, and presently her full lips parted in a slow smile. My ideas were diverted into another channel.
 
“You have yet to tell me what alarmed you,” I said in a low voice, but as courteously as possible, “and if I can be of any assistance in the matter.”
 
My visitor seemed to recollect her fright—or the necessity for simulation. The pupils of her fine eyes seemed to grow larger and darker; she pressed her white teeth into her lower lips, and resting her hands upon the table leaned toward me.
 
“I am a stranger to London,” she began, now exhibiting a certain diffidence, “and to-night I was looking for the chambers of Mr. Raphael Philips of Figtree Court.”
 
“This is Figtree Court,” I said, “but I know of no Mr. Raphael Philips who has chambers here.”
 
The black eyes met mine despairingly.
 
“But I am positive of the address!” protested my beautiful but strange caller—from her left glove she drew out a scrap of paper, “here it is.”
 
I glanced at the fragment, upon which, in a woman's hand the words were pencilled: “Mr. Raphael Philips, 36-b Figtree Court, London.”
 
I stared at my visitor, deeply mystified.
 
“These chambers are 36-b!” I said. “But I am not Raphael Philips, nor have I ever heard of him. My name is Malcolm Knox. There is evidently some mistake, but”—returning the slip of paper—“pardon me if I remind you, I have yet to learn the cause of your alarm.”
 
“I was followed across the court and up the stairs.”
 
“Followed! By whom?”
 
“By a dreadful-looking man, chattering in some tongue I did not understand!”
 
My amazement was momentarily growing greater.
 
“What kind of a man?” I demanded rather abruptly.
 
“A yellow-faced man—remember I could only just distinguish him in the darkness on the stairway, and see little more of him than his eyes at that, and his ugly gleaming teeth—oh! it was horrible!”
 
“You astound me,” I said; “the thing is utterly incomprehensible.” I switched off the light of the lamp. “I'll see if............