The words taught Soames that his capacity for emotion was by no means exhausted.  His endless conjectures respecting the mysterious Mr. King were at last to be replaced by facts; he was to see him, to speak with him.  He knew now that it was a fearful privilege which gladly he would have denied himself.

Ho-Pin opened a door almost immediately behind him, a door the existence of which had not hitherto been evident to Soames.  Beyond, was a dark passage.

“You will follow me, closely,” said Ho-Pin with one of his piercing glances.

Soames, finding his legs none too steady, entered the passage behind Ho-Pin.  As he did so, the door was closed by Said, and he found himself in absolute darkness.

“Keep close behind me,” directed the metallic voice.

Soames could not see the speaker, since no ray of light penetrated into the passage.  He stretched out a groping hand, and, although he was conscious of an odd revulsion, touched the shoulder of the man in front of him and maintained that unpleasant contact whilst they walked on and on through apparently endless passages, extensive as a catacomb.  Many corners they turned; they turned to the right, they turned to the left.  Soames was hopelessly bewildered.  Then, suddenly, Ho-Pin stopped.

“Stand still,” he said.

Soames became vaguely aware that a door was being closed somewhere near to him.  A lamp lighted up directly over his head... he found himself in a small library!

Its four walls were covered with book-shelves from floor to ceiling, and the shelves were packed to overflowing with books in most unusual and bizarre bindings.  A red carpet was on the floor and a red-shaded lamp hung from the ceiling, which was conventionally white-washed.  Although there was no fireplace, the room was immoderately hot, and heavy with the perfume of roses.  On three little tables were great bowls filled with roses, and there were other bowls containing roses in gaps between the books on the open shelves.

A tall screen of beautifully carved sandalwood masked one corner of the room, but beyond it protruded the end of a heavy writing-table upon which lay some loose papers, and, standing amid them, an enormous silver rose-bowl, brimming with sulphur-colored blooms.

Soames, obeying a primary instinct, turned, as the light leaped into being, to seek the door by which he had entered.  As he did so, the former doubts of his own sanity returned with renewed vigor.

The book-lined wall behind him was unbroken by any opening.

Slowly, as a man awaking from a stupor, Soames gazed around the library.

It contained no door.

He rested his hand upon one of the shelves and closed his eyes.  Beyond doubt he was going mad!  The tragic events of that night had proved too much for him; he had never disguised from himself the fact that his mental capacity was not of the greatest.  He was assured, now, that his brain had lost its balance shortly after his flight from Palace Mansions, and that the events of the past two hours had been phantasmal.  He would presently return to sanity (or, blasphemously, he dared to petition heaven that he would) and find himself...?  Perhaps in the hands of the police!