movement nor cry did he betray that he was awake. He had not locked the
door of his room; that widening strip of black ran vertically down from
the lintel to the ground and between the white door and the white door
frame. The door was being cautiously pushed open; the strip of black was
the darkness of the passage coming through.

Wogan slid his hand beneath his pillow, and drew the knife from its
sheath as silently as the door opened. The strip of black ceased to
widen, there was a slight scuffling sound upon the floor which Wogan was
at no loss to understand. It was the sound of a man crawling into the
room upon his hands and knees.

Wogan lay on his side and felt grateful to his host,--an admirable
man,--for he had painted his door white, and now he crawled through it
on his hands and knees. No doubt he would crawl to the side of the bed;
he did. To feel, no doubt, for Mr. Wogan's coat and breeches and any
little letter which might be hiding in the pockets. But here Wogan was
wrong. For he saw a dark thing suddenly on the counterpane at the edge
of the bed. The dark thing travelled upwards very softly; it had four
fingers and a thumb. It was, no doubt, travelling towards the pillow,
and as soon as it got there--but Wogan watching that hand beneath his
dosed eyelids had again to admit that he was wrong. It did not travel
towards the pillow; to his astonishment it stole across towards him, it
touched his chest very gently, and then he understood. The hand was
creeping upwards towards his throat.

Meanwhile Wogan had seen no face, though the face must be just below the
level of the bed. He only saw the hand and the arm behind it. He moved
as if in his sleep, and the hand disappeared. As if in his sleep, he
flung out his left arm and felt for the sign-board standing beside his