Maudie unlocked a curtained door.

'This room I do keep under lock and key,' she said.

It was a huge octagonal room, glass roofed, with an admirable north light. One end of the octagon was a complete small theatre with, explained Maudie, a large plant of scenery and every facility for producing all classes of stage plays.

'Wait till you see some of 'em,' Maudie went on. 'We've got some pretty wits among our members-we call it a club. It's supposed to exist for the practice of the higher photographic arts, and the exhibition of real life on the stage. It is damned real, too, I can tell you.

'Our finest bit of realism was a play which lasted, on and off, for nearly a year. It started with a courtship, rivalry, seduction-dark man, dark night, and that sort of thing, you know-of course in full view of the audience. Then he married her, and we ran through the first nine months of their life together, their lusts and their quarrels. How they both were untrue, and how she gradually became larger in condition till her belly was bang right up and she finally pupped in full view of the audience.

'Of course we were lucky in having a girl who was not only a very good actress, but happened to be like that, and was strong enough to play right through. It was Miss — ,' naming a well-known celebrity.

Charlie started.

'Yes; that's how she spent her time when the papers said she was touring in Italy. Oh, she is a brazen bitch.'

But to the photography. Bar a number of photos lying on a big table on the carpeted dais at the other end of the room, there was not much evidence of photography at all. No cameras, no pictures on the walls-these were entirely covered with what seemed to be a patchwork of little curtains.