The Paternoster Ruby

He and another man appeared, after a while, at the back of the hall, having evidently availed themselves of a rear stairway.

I surveyed the private secretary with much interest, and must even now confess, after no inconsiderable study of the human face, that I have never since beheld one that was so utterly baffling.

He was a slender man of medium height, and of an age that might have been anything between twenty and fifty; his eyes, hair, brows, and lashes were all of a uniform shade of pale yellow--excepting that the eyes had a greenish tint--while his face and thin, nervous hands wore a dead, unwholesome pallor.

The effect was extraordinary. The ageless face looked as if it did not know how to conform to or mirror any inward emotion; and furthermore, one was never precisely positiv