There was more of it--more whining explanations artfully tinctured with
abuse, more terse commands to depart, the whole concluding with scraping
footsteps, diminuendo, and another perfunctory, rattle of the knob as the
bobby, having shoo'd the putative evil-doer off, assured himself that
no damage had actually been done. Then he, too, departed, satisfied and
self-righteous, leaving a badly frightened but very grateful amateur
criminal to pursue his self-appointed career of crime.

He had no choice other than to continue; in point of fact, it had been
insanity just then to back out, and run the risk of apprehension at the
hands of that ubiquitous bobby, who (for all he knew) might be lurking not
a dozen yards distant, watchful for just such a sequel. Still, Kirkwood
hesitated with the best of excuses. Reassuring as he had found the
sentinel's extemporized yarn,--proof positive that the fellow had had no
more right to prohibit a trespass than Kirkwood to commit one,--at the
same time he found himself pardonably a prey to emotions of the utmost
consternation and alarm. If he feared to leave the house he had no warrant
whatever to assume that he would be permitted to remain many minutes
unharmed within its walls of mystery.

The silence of it discomfited him beyond measure; it was, in a word,
uncanny.

Before him, as he lingered at the door, vaguely disclosed by a wan
illumination penetrating a dusty and begrimed fan-light, a broad hall
stretched indefinitely towards the rear of the building, losing itself in
blackness beyond the foot of a flight of stairs. Save for a few articles of
furniture,--a hall table, an umbrella-stand, a tall dumb clock flanked by
high-backed chairs,--it was empty. Other than Kirkwood's own restrained