IT was of course plain to Racksole that the peculiar passageway which he had, at great personal inconvenience, discovered between the bathroom of No.

111 and the State bathroom on the floor below must have been specially designed by some person or persons for the purpose of keeping a nefarious watch upon the occupants of the State suite of apartments.
It was a means of communication at once simple and ingenious.

At that moment he could not be sure of the precise method employed for it, but he surmised that the casing of the waterpipes had been used as a 'well', while space for the pipes themselves had been found in the thickness of the ample brick walls of the Grand Babylon.

The eye-hole, through which he now had a view of the bedroom, was a very minute one, and probably would scarcely be noticed from the exterior.

One thing he observed concerning it, namely, that it had been made for a man somewhat taller than himself; he was obliged to stand on tiptoe in order to get his eye in the correct position.