He heard it the instant he lay still in bed after the shuffling process known generally as “cuddling down.”  And he knew that it was approaching because of the assistance the hall clock brought to his bewildered ears.  For the hall clock—­a big, dignified piece of furniture with a deep note—­happened just then to strike the hour of two in the morning, and there was a considerable interval between the two notes.  He first heard the step far below in the act of leaving the flagged hall for the staircase; then the clock drowned it with its first stroke, and perhaps a dozen seconds later, when the second stroke had died away, he heard the step again, as it passed from the top of the staircase on to the polished boards of the landing.  The owner of the step, meanwhile, had passed up the whole length of the staircase in the interval, and was now coming across the landing in a direct line towards his bedroom door.

“It is a step, I suppose,” it seems he muttered to himself, as with head partially raised above the blankets he listened intently.  “It’s a step, I mean...?” For the sound was more like a light tapping of a little hammer than an actual step—­some hard substance drumming automatically upon the floor, while yet moving in advance.  He recognized, however, that there was intelligence behind its movements, because of the sense of direction it displayed, and by the fact that it had turned the sharp corner of the stairs; but the idea presented itself in fugitive fashion to his mind—­Heaven alone knows why—­that it might be some mechanical contrivance that was worked from the hall by a hand.  For the sound was too light to be the tread of a person, yet too “conscious” to be merely a sound of the night operating mechanically.  And it was unlike the noise that the feet of any animal would make, any animal that he could think of, that is.  A four-footed creature suggested itself to his mind, but without approval.

The puzzling characteristics of the sound, therefore, contradictory as they were, left him utterly perplexed, so that for some little time he could not make up his mind whether to be frightened, interested or merely curious.

This uncertainty, however, lasted but a moment or two at the most, for an appreciable pause outside his door was next followed by a noise of scratching upon the panels, as of hands or paws, and then by the shuffling of some living body that was flattening itself in an attempt to squeeze through the considerable crack between door and flooring, and so to enter the room.

And, hearing it, Spinrobin this time was so petrified with an instantaneous rush of terror, that at first he dared not even move to find the matches again under his pillow.

The pause was dreadful.  He longed for brilliant light that should reveal all parts of the room equally, or else for a thick darkness that should conceal him from everything in the world.  The uncertain flicker of a single candle playing miserably between the two was the last thing in the world to appeal to him.