Beyond the bright space and the figures there was a dark place that was somehow curtained off.

Something had happened there, he could not see what.
And in trying to see he forgot to turn the gas out.

He turned it up instead.
He left it blazing away at the rate of a penny an hour, a witness against him in the face of morning.

But he did not forget to sit down at the bottom of the stairs and take his boots off, lest he should wake Flossie Walker, the little clerk, who worked so hard, and had to be up so early.

He left them on the stairs, where Flossie tripped over them in the morning.
On the first landing a young man in a frowsy sleeping suit stood waiting for him.