Only two or three steps from the top, he could see, ill-defined in the dim light, the features of his own hall; the door at the front at the further end, closer, the door to the bedroom, and at the back the open entrance, without a door, to the kitchenette. It was really a public hall, but since it was the top floor no one else ever used it.
There was a soft yellow glow through the shade which covered the small, single electric light in the middle of the wall. Standing quietly, he could hear from the kitchenette the recurrent faint plop of a single drop of water from the leaky faucet into the sink, a full two seconds’ interval between; and from the kitchenette also, through the window at its further end, came the yowl of a wandering cat in the court below.