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Tearing open the envelope, he read the few scrawled lines it contained, and reading, he frowned. Presently he folded the letter, put it back in its envelope and slipped it into his pocket.

"Mahmet, did you hear anybody outside?" he asked when the servant had come in response to his signal.

"No, effendi—not since the secretary went. I was in the hall then."

Morlake took the letter from his pocket.

"This was not here when you let Binger out?"

"No—there was nothing."

The letter must have been delivered while he was changing his shoes.

Restoring the scrawled warning to his pocket, he went out on the stone landing. His flat was the only residential apartment in the building, the lower floors being offices, the ground floor a couturière's establishment. Usually at this hour of the night the caretaker, the only other person in the building at night, was to be found smoking in the small entrance hall, but to-night he was absent.

As Morlake came into the street, Inspector Marborne, standing in the shadow of a door, tapped his companion on the shoulder.