moment's work to feel his way to the velvet folds and draw them
aside, fortunately without rattling the brass rings from which the
curtain depended. And then Maitland was in the passage, acutely on
the alert, recognizing from the continued click of metal that his
antagonist-to-be was still at his difficult task. Inch by inch--
there was the tapestry! Very gently the householder pushed it
aside.

An insidious aroma of scorching varnish (the dark lantern)
penetrated the passage while he stood on its threshold, feeling
for the electric-light switch. Unhappily he missed this at the
first cast, and--heard from within a quick, deep hiss of breath.
Something had put the burglar on guard.

Another instant wasted, and it would be too late. The young man
had to chance it. And he did, without further hesitation stepping
boldly into the danger-zone, at the same time making one final,
desperate pass at the spot where the switch should have been--and
missing it. On the instant there came a click of a different
caliber from those that had preceded it. A revolver had been
cocked, somewhere there in the blank darkness.

Maitland knew enough not to move. In another respect the warning
came too late; his fingers had found the switch at last, and
automatically had turned it. The glare was blinding, momentarily;
but the flash and report for which Maitland waited did not come.
When his eyes had adjusted themselves to the suddenly altered
conditions, he saw, directly before him and some six feet distant,
a woman's slight figure, dark cloaked, resolute upon its two feet,
head framed in veiling, features effectually disguised in a motor