A lane, as he had expected, ran in the rear of the tenements and Barloff’s house. Billy Kane slipped into this, located Barloff’s house, low-lying against the sky line between the taller buildings, swung himself over the fence, dropped noiselessly to the ground, and for a moment stood there motionless.
The yard was very small, and, but a few feet in front of him, a light from the open and uncurtained window of Barloff’s rear room streamed out across the intervening space. Voices reached him, but he could not distinguish the words; neither, from where he stood, could he see anyone in the room, though the window was quite low, little more than breast high from the ground.
And then a form inside the room passed across the window space, a woman’s form; and again a voice reached him, a woman’s voice, and Billy Kane drew in his breath sharply. He still could not distinguish the words, but he had recognized the voice.
Once again he had jumped too hastily to conclusions in so far as she was concerned—it was the Woman in Black. There was no question as to why she was there; it was obvious that she had simply forestalled him in warning the old Russian; but—a perplexed frown furrowed Billy Kane’s forehead—her hand would have showed a little late in the game to have saved the Wop!
He stole forward, keeping in the shadows of the side fence, reached the rear wall of the house, edged across to the side of the window where he could both see and hear, and crouched there. His eyes swept the interior in a swift, comprehensive survey. It was a sordid, ill-furnished, bare-floored room, and very dirty. A seedy old morris chair in the center of the room supplied the only suggestion of comfort or luxury, and that an incongruous one, that the place possessed. Apart from that, there was a huge and aged safe, a relic of the days when such things were locked with keys, which was backed up against one wall; and near an open door, which apparently led into the front room, there was a battered desk with an equally battered swivel chair—and that was all, unless the telephone that stood upon the desk might be included in the furnishings. There was, however, another door, also open, which faced the safe, and which apparently gave on a passageway that in turn opened on the back yard. Billy Kane glanced around him. Yes, there was a rear door here, just a little to his right.