Again the sense of emptiness oppressed him.

A faint perfume around the place where she had stood came to him like a whiff of some delicious memory.

He set his teeth, lit a cigarette, and sitting down at his desk wrote a few lines to his neighbour, embodying the message which had been given him.
With the note in his hand he ascended to the next floor.
There was apparently no light in flat number 11, but he rang the bell and listened.

There was no answer, no sound of any one moving within.

For nearly ten minutes he waited--listening.