Page:Vance--The rass bowl.djvu/264

 on his hands and knees on the sidewalk, picked himself up, shouting "You'll wait?" to the driver, and sprinted madly the few yards separating him from his own front door, keys ready in hand.

Simultaneously the half-winded policeman lumbered around the Fifth Avenue corner, and a man, detaching himself from the shadows of a neighboring doorway, began to trot loutishly across the street, evidently with the intention of intercepting Maitland at the door.

He was hardly quick enough. Maitland did not even see him. The door slammed in the man's face, and he, panting harshly, rapped out an imprecation and began a frantic assault on the push-button marked "Janitor."

As for Maitland, he was taking the stairs three at a clip, and had his pass-key in the latch almost as soon as his feet touched the first landing. An instant later he thrust the door open and blundered blindly into the pitch-darkness of his study.

For a thought he stood bewildered and dismayed by the absence of light. He had thought, somehow,