"Don't worry yourselves, either of you. Go to bed, and to sleep if you
can."

"As if we could," answered Miss Lorne agitatedly. "I shan't be able to
close an eyelid. I'll try, of course, but I know I shall not succeed.
Come, uncle, come! Oh, do be careful, Mr. Narkom; and if that horrible
man does come--"

"I'll have him, so help me God!" he vowed. "Switch off the light, and
shut the door as you go out. This is 'Forty Faces'' Waterloo at last."

And in another moment the light snicked out, the door closed, and he was
alone in the silent room.

For ten or a dozen minutes not even the bare suggestion of a noise
disturbed the absolute stillness; then of a sudden, his trained ear
caught a faint sound that made him suck in his breath and rise on his
elbow, the better to listen--a sound which came, not without the house,
but from within, from the dark hall where he had stationed his men, to
be exact. As he listened he was conscious that some living creature had
approached the door, touched the handle, and by the swift, low rustle
and the sound of hard breathing, that it had been pounced upon and
seized. He scrambled out from beneath the table, snicked on the light,
whirled open the door, and was in time to hear the irritable voice of
Sir Horace say, testily: "Don't make an ass of yourself by your
over-zealousness. I've only come down to have a word with Mr. Narkom,"
and to see him standing on the threshold, grotesque in a baggy suit of
striped pyjamas, with one wrist enclosed as in a steel band by the
gripped fingers of Petrie.