As Kitty opened her door to step outside she was nonplussed to see
two men issue cautiously from the Gregor door. The moment they
espied her, however, there was a mad rush for the stair head. She
could hear the thud of their feet all the way down to the ground
floor; and every footfall seemed to touch her heart. One of them
carried a bundle.

She breathed quickly, and she knew that she was afraid. Neither
man was Johnny Two-Hawks. Something dreadful had happened; she was
sure of it. Reenforcing her sinking courage with nerve energy she
ran across to the Gregor door and knocked. No answer. She knocked
again; then she tried the door. Locked. The flutter in her breast
died away; she became quite calm. She was going to enter this
apartment by the way of the fire escape. The window he had come out
of was still up. She had made note of this from the kitchen. In
returning he had stepped on to the springe of a snare.

She hurried back to her kitchen for the automatic. She hadn't the
least idea how to manipulate it; but she was no longer afraid of it.
Bravely she stepped out on to the fire escape. To reach her
objective she had to walk under the ladder. Danger often puts odd
irrelevancies into the human brain. As she moved forward she
wondered if there was anything in the superstition regarding ladders.

When she reached the window she leaned against the brick wall and
listened. Silence; an ominous silence. The window was open, the
curtain up. Within, what? For as long as five minutes she waited,
then she climbed in.