ic episode departs from all precedent; at this stage
it assumes its baffling aspects. If the thief had not been a member of
the household--even but a temporary member--why should he have gone up
the stairs instead of leaving the house by the nearest way? And again,
why should Mr. Page have followed the thief so stealthily if he had not
recognized him?

But the master of the house steals on up the stairs behind the other.
At about the time he arrives at the head of the stairs the thief
vanishes: else why did Mr. Page pause to light the candle in the iron
candlestick which stood upon the _etagere_?

Fatal move, that! In some manner the _etagere_ is knocked forward
against the balustrade; the thief is alarmed, although some door must
have closed behind him. And now the old gentleman is facing no longer
a thief merely, but a man with murder in his heart.

Which door had it been: Maillot's, or Burke's, or yet some other door?

Once more we are given a strong indication that Felix Page knew the
man, for he and the assassin _in limine_ do not immediately close in
combat. Not yet. Some words certainly pass. The taper in the heavy
iron candlestick must burn long enough to account not only for the
drops of paraffin scattered about over the floor, but those that ran
like congealing tears down the side.

I could fancy the outraged and mystified old gentleman demanding an
explanation, and before long exploding with wrath, the thief standing
hopelessly convicted--caught "with the goods."

Suddenly the struggle is precipitated by the infuriated householder
endeavoring to recover his property. We may safely assume that it was
by no gentle means that he sought to do this, and at once the battle
wages to and fro between the head of the stairs and the lateral
passage, quite up to the bath room door. The thief is striving to
retain the leather box, the other to wrest it from him.

It is pretty certain, too, that the old gentleman hastily put down the
iron candlestick before he grasped the box--on the floor, somewhere
near the western angle of the balustrade--and in the end, as the combat
in one of its uncertain revolutions sweeps past it, the thief frees
himself with a desperate effort, snatches it from the floor, and
becomes an assassin _in actu_.

The dull impact of the blow, as the scene is blinded by sudden
darkness; the crash of the body against the railing; the dominant jar
when the body strikes upon the landing bel