Sinopsis

MR. BROWN was in the act of looking down the barrel of a revolver when a noise—a call— somewhere in the stairway of his block of flats arrested his hand. There were three reasons why at that supreme moment he was susceptible to so slight an influence; the cry was a curiously melodious one, and the hearer was by nature and profession a musician; it was, as well as a melodious call, a strangely old-world one; and it seemed to speak of coal. Now it was precisely the absence of this commodity that was driving the musician to his rash act.