One man alone was standing there. Foo Cha looked at him in despair; it was certainly not Knigenstein, nor was there any sign of his carriage in the street. The stranger was a man of middle height, squarely built and stout. He wore a long black overcoat, and he stood with his hands in his pockets.
"What you want?" Foo Cha asked. "What you want with me?"
The man did not answer at once, but he stepped inside into the passage. Foo Cha tried to shut the door in his face, but it was like pushing against a mountain.
"Master? He not here," Foo Cha answered, with glib and untruthful earnestness. "Indeed he is not here--quite true. He come to-morrow; I preparing house for him. What do you want? Go away, or me call policeman."
The intruder smiled indulgently into the Chinaman's earnest, upturned face.
"Foo Cha," he said, "that is enough. Take this card to your master, Mr. Sabin."
Foo Cha was ready to begin another torrent of expostulations, but in the gas-light he met the new-comer's steadfast gaze, and he was silent. The stranger was dressed in the garb of a superior working man, but his speech and manner indicated a very different station. Foo Cha took the card and left him in the passage. He made his way softly into the sitting-room, and as he entered he turned the key in the lock behind him; there, at any rate, was a moment or two of respite.
"Master," he said, "there is a man there whom we cannot stop. When me tell him you no here, he laugh at me. He will see you; he no go way. He laugh again when I try shut the door. He give me card; I no understand what on it."
Mr. Sabin stretched out his hand and took the card from the Chinaman's fingers. There seemed to be one or two words upon it, traced in a delicate, sloping handwriting. Mr. Sabin had snatched at the little piece of pasteboard with some impatience, but the moment he had read those few words a remarkable change came over him. He started as though he had received an electric shock; the pupils of his eyes seemed hideously dilated; the usual pallor of his face was merged in a ghastly whiteness. And then, after the first shock, came a look of deep and utter despair; his hand fell to his side, a half-muttered imprecation escaped from his trembling lips, yet he laid the card gently, even with reverence, upon the desk before him.