not be
sure that I had reached the right one until I'd lighted a match. When I
was sure, I knocked, but no answer came.

"He can't be out," I said to myself, cheerfully. "He's got tired of
waiting and dropped asleep, that's all."

I knocked again. Silence. And then for a third time, loudly, keeping on
until I was sure that, if there were anyone in the room, no matter how
sound asleep, I must have waked him.

After all, he had gone out, but perhaps only for a short time. Surely,
he would soon come back, lest he should miss the keeper of the diamonds.

I had very little hope that, even on the chance of my arriving while he
was away, he would have left the door open. Nevertheless I tried the
handle, and to my surprise it yielded.

"That must be because the lock's broken and only a bolt remains," I
thought. "So he had to take the risk. All the better. This looks as if
he'd be back any minute. He wouldn't like giving the enemy a chance to
find his lair and step into it before him." It was dark in the room, and
I struck another wax match just inside the threshold. But I had hardly
time to get an impression of bareness and meanness of furnishing before
a draught of air from an open window blew out the struggling flame and
at the same instant banged the door shut behind me.

CHAPTER XIII

IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK

There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere
at the far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light
knocking of a window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger.

If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I
might be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or
table. Then, what good luck if I should discover the case containing the
treaty and go off with it before "J.M." came back! It was not his, and
he was a thief: therefore, I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de
Renzie much good by taking it, if he had left it behind, not too well
hidden when he went out.

Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the
window, though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted
floor, groping with hands held out before me as I moved.

In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something
which proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor. I
pushed it out of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four
steps when I caught my foot