THEOPHILUS BIRD, having walked the half-mile or so from Blackheath Station, opened the gate of his dark villa, crossed the bit of garden faintly lit by the fanlight over the front door, and with his latch-key let himself into the house. Hat and coat hung up on a walnut hatstand, he rubbed his hands together, for it was a frosty January evening, and though, according to convention, he had put on his gloves in order to walk from his office in Whitehall to Charing Cross Station, he had taken them off in the railway carriage and forgotten to put them on again.
The plan of the entrance floor was simple. On the immediate left of the hall, a small room—grandiloquently termed the library—and, farther along, the dining-room. On the right, one flight of stairs going up, and another going down, with a toilet-room between. In front, the drawing-room. The door of this he opened, to find pitch blackness. An electric light switched on showed the ashes of a dead fire. The dining-room proved equally cheerless. He rang the bell. A meagre woman in a soiled print dress appeared.
