I looked at him, and I felt that he could be trusted.
"This," I said, holding up the money, "is the price of Silence."
But If he was trustworthy he was not subtile, and he said:
"The what, miss?"
"If any one asks if you have driven me here, YOU HAVE NOT" I explained,
in an impressive manner.
He examined the quarter, even striking a match to look at it. Then he
replied: "I have not!" and drove away.
Concealing my nervousness as best I could, I entered the doomed
Building. There was only a hall boy there, asleep in the elevator, and
I looked at the thing with the names on it. "Mr. Grosvenor" was on the
fourth floor.
I wakened the boy, and he yawned and took me to the fourth floor. My
hands were stiff with nervousness by that time, but the boy was half
asleep, and evadently he took me for some one who belonged there, for
he said "Goodnight" to me, and went on down. There was a square landing
with two doors, and "Grosvenor" was on one. I tried it gently. It was
unlocked.
"FACILUS DESCENSUS IN AVERNU."
I am not defending myself. What I did was the result of desparation.
But I cannot even write of my sensations as I stepped through that fatal
portal, without a sinking of the heart. I had, however, had suficient
forsight to prepare an alabi. In case there was some one present in the
apartment I intended to tell a falshood, I regret to confess, and to say
that I had got off at the wrong floor.
There was a sort of hall, with a clock and a table, and a shaded
electric lamp, and beyond that the door was open into a sitting room.
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