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OR a moment Odell was dumbfounded by the sheer audacity of the man who stood in the lighted doorway on the alley with one hand slipped suggestively in the pocket of his dinner-coat, coolly smiling down at him. Then he shrugged and replied in the same vein.

"Thanks. I confess that at the present moment nothing would give me greater pleasure than to accept this invitation of yours, Mr. Drew."

His unexpected host threw wide the door and stepped back for him to enter.

"I trust that you will have no reason to retract that statement, Sergeant," he said pleasantly. "I have no doubt that we will be able to come to a mutually satisfactory understanding."

As he spoke he swung the door shut and with a single motion turned the key and thrust it into his pocket. The detective gave no sign that he had observed the act, even when Drew walked deliberately across the room to the other door and locked it also. Instead he stood gazing about him with frank interest.

The room was larger than Odell had supposed from his restricted view of it through the aperture in the torn window-shade. The sideboard and bookcase which flanked 153