to the narrow street lining the canal which ran at the back of the
house.

Escape by the windows was impossible. The front of the house dropped
sheer down and there was nothing to give one a foothold. But I
remembered the window in the _cabinet de toilette_ giving on to the
little air-shaft. That seemed to offer a slender chance of escape.

For the second time that night I opened the casement and inhaled the
fetid odours arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking,
like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light
still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to
the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry,
but I thought I could recognize the outline of a door.

From the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ to the yard the sides of
the house, cased in stained and dirty stucco, fell sheer away. Measured
with the eye the drop from window to the pavement was about fifty feet.
With a rope and something to break one's fall, it might, I fancied, be
managed....

From that on, things moved swiftly. First with my penknife I ripped the
tailor's tab with my name from the inside pocket of my coat and burnt it
in the candle; nothing else I had on was marked, for I had had to buy a
lot of new garments when I came out of hospital. I took Semlin's
overcoat, hat and bag into the _cabinet de toilette_ and stood them in
readiness by the window. As a precaution against surprise I pushed the
massive mahogany bedstead right across the doorway and thus barricaded
the entrance to the room.