“Once inside, I made my simple preparations rapidly.  Placing the concussor in a tall cylindrical basket close to the cellar door, I opened the latter and hitched the rope in a position where I could grasp it easily.  Then I took from the cupboard the tin of cart-grease, and, with a large knife, spread a thick layer of the grease on the upper four steps of the cellar stairs.  While thus engaged, I turned over my plans quickly but with considerable misgivings.  The odds were greater than I ought to have taken.  For, as to the intentions of these men, I could have no reasonable doubt.  Bamber was known to me and he would not run the risk of my giving information.  The amiable intention of these gentry was to ‘do me in,’ as they would have expressed it, and the vital question for me was, How did they mean to do it?  Firearms they would probably avoid on account of the noise, but if they all came at me at once with knives my chance would be infinitesimal.

“It comes back to me now rather oddly that I weighed these probabilities quite impersonally, as though I were a mere spectator.  And such was virtually the case.  The fact is that, although I had long since abandoned the idea of suicide, I remained alive as a matter of principle and not by personal desire.  My objection to being killed was merely the abstract objection to the killing of any worthy member of society by these human vermin.  But if any such person must needs be killed, I was quite indifferent as to whether the subject of the action were myself or some other.  I had no personal interest in the matter.  Hence, when I unbolted the door and beckoned the three men into the room, though doubtful of the issue, I had no feeling of nervousness.

“The advantage that my impassiveness gave me over those three rascals was very evident when they slouched in, for they were all trembling and twitching with nervous excitement.  And no wonder.  To a man who values his life above everything on earth, it is a serious matter to walk into the very shadow of the gallows.  As soon as they were inside, one of them, who looked like a Polish Jew, bolted the door; and then they gathered round me like a pack of hyenas.

“I backed unostentatiously into the corner by the cellar door, talking volubly to the three men by turn as I went; and the Jew edged along the wall to get behind me.  I realized that he was the one whom I had to watch, and I watched him; not looking at him, but keeping him on the periphery of my field of vision.  For, as is well known, the peripheral area of the retina, although insensitive to impressions of form, is highly sensitive to impressions of movement.

“My remarks on the danger to respectable persons of meddling with stolen property gave Mr. Bamber his cue.

“‘Stolen property,’ he roared. ’’Oo said anything about stolen property?  What d’yer mean, yer bloomin’ scalp-scraper!’ and he advanced threateningly with his chin stuck forward and a most formidable scowl.