The woman rose and looked out into the hall. On a bracket stood an evil-smelling oil-lamp turned down low. Beside it a brass tray contained the basin of _consommé_ and a dingy little metal cruet. There were two letters there also, addressed to Mr. Gabriel, and Anna took them up to examine them.
They were in her hands when she started suddenly and put them back on the tray. There was the sound of a key being inserted in the street door below, and hastily slipping back into her room, Anna put out her light and closed the door.
She heard the man come up the stairs and unlock his door and carry the tray into his room. Then a match was struck, and with a start Anna noticed a thin streak of light break out in the darkness of the wall beside her.
She noticed then for the first time that the rooms, like those below, were separated by folding doors, but in the case of the first floor they had been fastened up, and on her side had been papered over and a heavy wardrobe placed against them.
Eagerly Anna Paluda placed her eye to the crack of light beside the massive piece of furniture, but she could see nothing. She determined that when Dasso went out on the following evening she would see what could be done to widen the crack in the papered door.
A week after Anna had taken up her residence at No. 9, Dorrington Street, Señor Gabriel Dasso, as usual, left the house about eight o'clock. He had seen his fellow-lodger for the first time when he had passed her in the dimness of the stairs that night as he went out.
But the heavily veiled lady conveyed nothing to him at the moment, and the stairs disguised the height, which was so strong a characteristic of Madame Paluda. Dasso had merely raised his hat and passed on.
For some reason a bad mood was upon the ex-dictator of San Pietro. He dined as usual at an exclusive little restaurant in Soho, but his favourite dishes gave him no pleasure, and although he drank twice as much wine as was his custom, the black dog had settled firmly on his back and refused to be dislodged.
The hole-and-corner life he was leading was becoming very wearisome to a man of his tastes, and his long daylight sittings in the little Bloomsbury room were getting sadly on his nerves. As he sat over his coffee and cognac he asked himself whether all this hiding was necessary, after all.