“Very well.”  Mrs. Inche rose.  “Wait here a moment.”

Wrapping her negligee round her, she swept magnificently out of the “den,” and a moment later again crossed P. Sybarite’s range of vision as she ascended the stairs.  Then she disappeared, and there was silence in the house:  a breathing spell which the little man strove to employ to the best advantage by endeavouring to assort and rearrange his sadly disordered impressions.

Aware that he would probably do wisely to rise and flee the place, he none the less lingered, vastly intrigued and more than half inclined to see the affair through to the end.

His confused reverie was presently interrupted by the sound of the woman’s high, clear voice at a telephone located (he fancied) somewhere in the hallway of the second story.

“Hello!  Columbus, seven, four hundred, please....  Hello—­Mason?...  Taxicab, please—­Mrs. Jefferson Inche....  Yes—­charge....  Yes—­immediately....  Thank you!”

A moment later she reappeared on the stairs, carrying a wrap of some sort over her arm:  a circumstance which caused P. Sybarite uneasily to wonder if she meant to push her notorious indifference to convention to the limit of going out in a taxicab with no other addition to her airy costume than a cloak.

But when she again entered the “den,” it proved to be a man’s coat and soft hat that she had found for him.

“Get up,” she ordered imperiously, “and change to these before you get pinched for impersonating an officer.  I’ve called a taxi for you, and this is what I want you to do:  go to Dutch House—­that’s a dive on Fortieth Street—­”

“I’ve heard of it,” nodded P. Sybarite.  “Any sober man who stays away from it is almost perfectly safe, I believe.”

“I’ll back you to take care of yourself,” said the lady.  “Ask for Red November....  You know who he is?”

“The gangster?  Yes.”

“If he isn’t in, wait for him if you wait till daylight—­”

“Important as all that, eh?”

“It’s life or death to me,” said Mrs. Inche serenely.  “I’ve got to have protection—­you’ve seen yourself how had I need it.  And the police are not for the likes of me.  Besides,” she added with engaging candour, “if I squeal and tell the truth, then friend husband will be disinherited for sure, and I’ll have had all my trouble for nothing.”

“You make it perfectly clear, Mrs. Inche....  And when I see Mr. Red November—?”

“Say to him three words:  Nella wants you.  He’ll understand.  Then you can go home.”

“If I get out alive.”

“You’re safe if you don’t drink anything there.”

“Doubtless; but I’ll feel safer if you’ll lend me the loan of this pretty toy,” said P. Sybarite, weighing in one hand her automatic pistol.

“It’s yours.”

“Anything in it?”

“Three shots left, I believe.  No matter.  I’ll get you a handful of cartridges and you can reload the clip in the taxicab.  Not that you’re likely to need it at Dutch House.”