"Rather an odd sort of lodger for you, isn't he?"
"Not so odd as his visitors," the woman retorted, with an evil sneer.
Pamela passed into the narrow street and drew a long sigh of relief. Then she entered her car and gave the chauffeur an address from the slip of paper which she carried in her hand. When they stopped outside the little block of flats he prepared to follow her.
"Tough neighbourhood this, madam," he said.
"Maybe, George," she replied, waving him back, "but you've got to stay down here. If the man I am going to see thought I was frightened of him I wouldn't have a chance. If I am not down in half an hour you can try number 18C."
The chauffeur resumed his place on the driving-seat of the car. Pamela, heartily disliking her surroundings, was escorted by a shabby porter to a shabbier lift.
"You'll find Mr. Joseph in," the lift boy assured her with a grin.
Pamela found the number at the end of an unswept stone passage. At her third summons the door was cautiously opened by a large, repulsive-looking woman, with a mass of peroxidised hair. She stared at her visitor first in amazement, then in rapidly gathering resentment.
"Mr. Joseph is at home," she admitted truculently, in response to Pamela's inquiry. "What might you be wanting with him?"
"If you will be so good as to let me in I will explain to Mr. Joseph," Pamela replied.
The woman seemed on the point of slamming the door. Suddenly there was a voice from behind her shoulder. Joseph appeared--not the smiling, joyous Joseph of Henry's but a sullen-looking negro, dressed in shirt and trousers only, with a heavy under-lip and frowning forehead.
"Let the lady pass and get into the kitchen, Nora," he ordered, "Come this way, mam."
Pamela followed her guide into a parlour, redolent of stale cigar smoke, with oilcloth on the floor and varnished walls, an abode even more horrible than Hassan's lair. Joseph closed the door carefully behind him, and made no apology for his dishabille. He simply faced Pamela.
"Say, what is it you want with me?" he demanded truculently.
"A trifle," she answered. "The key of the chapel in the little plot of waste ground next Henry's."
She meant him to be staggered, and he was. He reeled back for a moment.