ssed from what I had heard that the
visitor was in no hurry, and certainly hadn't the faintest suspicion
that anyone in the house was aware of his presence. I got my clothes on
somehow and took a grip of my long Colt by the barrel end. I didn't want
to shoot unless there was no other way out of it, and anyway a
revolver-shot kicks up such an infernal racket inside a house and brings
on the scene quite a number of people who'd be better at home and in
bed.

I slunk down the passage like a shadow, walking as if I were treading on
eggs. Very softly I tried the door. To my disgust it was locked. Now the
only time Bryce ever locked it was when he was at work inside, so I knew
that my man was still within reach. As if to make assurance doubly sure
I caught, as I stepped back, the faint gleam of a pencil of light from
under the doorway.

The position as I summed it up was this:--The intruder had entered
through the door and had quietly locked it behind him. That would have
been the first noise I had heard. Then he had hunted about for whatever
he wanted and, once it had been found, he had drawn the chair up to the
table and settled down to a prolonged study of the matter. That would
explain the two sounds. Now as my man had come in through the door he
was almost certain to go out the same way and, in the interests of peace
and quiet, the proper course to take was to sit down and wait until he
decided to come out.

I can't say how long I waited there. It seemed like hours, but of course
at the outside it could not have been many minutes. I would dearly have
liked to smoke, but I rather fancied that the other man's nose would be
sure to scent me out. Also a scrape of a match in a still house at the
dead of night sounds like a bomb-explosion. So I just squatted down on
my heels and cursed my man under my breath. I was in deadly fear most of
the time that he would make a noise of some kind and bring the other
inhabitants down about my ears. He was my meat, and I meant to eat him
myself.

At length the pencil of light went out. Somebody moved stealthily across
the room and the key turned softly in the lock. I balanced the gun in my
hand and got ready to swing. It was pitch-dark in the hall and I could
not see an inch in front of me, but I had my fingers right up against
the jamb of the door and I could feel it opening. The man was breathing
with a barely perceptible wheeze and, if I had not been listening for
something of the