The lads led us through another bewildering series of corridors till our sense of location was completely obfuscated, finally paused, one on each side of an archway, and, bowing deeply, signaled us to enter.
We strode into a long, marble-tiled room which, unlike every other apartment in the queer house, was not brilliantly lighted. The room’s sole illumination was furnished by the glow of fourteen wax candles set in two seven-branched silver candelabra which stood at opposite ends of a polished mahogany table of purest Sheraton design, its waxed surface giving back reflections of crystal, and silver dinner service fit for the table of a king.
“Ah, gentlemen,” Goonong Besar, arrayed in immaculate evening clothes, greeted us from the farther end of the room. “I hope you have brought good a
