A man came round the corner, smoking a cigarette and humming softly to himself.

The presence of another human being seemed suddenly to bring Tavernake's feet back upon the earth.

He moved toward the pavement and addressed the newcomer.
"Can you tell me how to get inside that house ?" he asked quickly.
The man removed the cigarette from his mouth and stared at his questioner.
"I should ring the bell," he replied, "but surely it's unoccupied?
What do you want to get in there for ?" "Less than a minute ago," Tavernake told him, "I was walking here with a friend.

A man came up behind us and tried deliberately to stab him.
He bolted afterwards through that door, my friend followed him, the door was closed in my face." The newcomer was a youngish man, a musician, who had just come from a concert and was on his way to the club at the end of the street.
Probably, had he been a journalist, his curiosity would have been greater than his incredulity.

As it was, however, he gazed at Tavernake, for a moment, blankly.
"Look here," he said, "this doesn't sound a very likely story of yours, you know." "I don't care whether it's likely or not," Tavernake answered hotly; "it's true! The knife's somewhere in the road there--it fell up against the railings." They crossed the road together and searched.