Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/418

 rising drifts to the subway station. By six o'clock he was at the Gavel Club, and by eight had finished his dinner. Several games of pool, a long talk with a visiting Englishman, perusal of the French comic papers, and convivial gossip with late comers from the theaters full of tales of the storm, kept him warm and cheerful till midnight. Then, as the clock struck, he put on his things and went out.

There were few abroad at this hour, and not a carriage or an automobile in sight. The street-car lines had given up trying to keep the tracks clear, and he came across one darkened car abandoned in the snow. He had to fight his way home, struggling through drifts waist high. It was deathly quiet except for the sound of the wind.

He reached his apartment-house at last, and, stamping and shaking himself, climbed four flights of stairs, the elevator being out of order. At his door he stopped, surprised. Under the door there was a thin streak of light.

Van Asten's firm was still too young to enable him to live in the style he had been used to before going into business. His apartment consisted of only four rooms,—a large, L-shaped studio, a bedroom, and, off the entrance hall, on one side a bath-room, and on the other a kitchenet. A woman came in every morning to clean up the place; except for that, he was alone.

He distinctly remembered that no light had been left burning when he had left the place at ten o'clock that morning. What, then, could the light mean? No one save the janitor had a key to the place. His thought went naturally to burglars. He hesitated for