With that he swung open the door, switched on the electric light, and Narkom fairly blinked at the dazzling sight that confronted him.  Three long tables, laden with crystal and silver, cut glass and jewels, and running the full length of the room, flashed and scintillated under the glare of the electric bulbs which encircled the cornice of the gallery, and clustered in luminous splendour in the crystal and frosted silver of a huge central chandelier, and spread out on the middle one of these—­a dazzle of splintered rainbows, a very plain of living light—­lay caskets and cases, boxes and trays, containing those royal gifts of which the newspapers had made so much and the Vanishing Cracksman had sworn to make so few.

Mr. Narkom went over and stood beside the glittering mass, resting his hand against the table and feasting his eyes upon all that opulent splendour.

“God bless my soul! it’s superb, it’s amazing,” he commented.  “No wonder the fellow is willing to take risks for a prize like this.  You are a splendid temptation; a gorgeous bait, you beauties; but the fish that snaps at you will find that there’s a nasty hook underneath in the shape of Maverick Narkom.  Never mind the many windows, Sir Horace.  Let him come in by them, if that’s his plan.  I’ll never leave these things for one instant between now and the morning.  Good night, Miss Lorne.  Go to bed and to sleep—­you do the same, Sir Horace.  My lay is here!”

With that he stooped and, lifting the long drapery which covered the table and swept down in heavy folds to the floor, crept out of sight under it, and let it drop back into place again.

“Switch off the light and go,” he called to them in a low-sunk voice.  “Don’t worry yourselves, either of you.  Go to bed, and to sleep if you can.”

“As if we could,” answered Miss Lorne agitatedly.  “I shan’t be able to close an eyelid.  I’ll try, of course, but I know I shall not succeed.  Come, uncle, come!  Oh, do be careful, Mr. Narkom; and if that horrible man does come—­”

“I’ll have him, so help me God!” he vowed.  “Switch off the light, and shut the door as you go out.  This is ‘Forty Faces’’ Waterloo at last.”

And in another moment the light snicked out, the door closed, and he was alone in the silent room.

For ten or a dozen minutes not even the bare suggestion of a noise disturbed the absolute stillness; then of a sudden, his trained ear caught a faint sound that made him suck in his breath and rise on his elbow, the better to listen—­a sound which came, not without the house, but from within, from the dark hall where he had stationed his men, to be exact.  As he listened he was conscious that some living creature had approached the door, touched the handle, and by the swift, low rustle and the sound of hard breathing, that it had been pounced upon and seized.  He scrambled out from beneath the table, snicked on the light, whirled open the door, and was in time to hear the irritable voice of Sir Horace say, testily:  “Don’t make an ass of yourself by your over-zealousness.  I’ve only come down to have a word with Mr. Narkom,” and to see him standing on the threshold, grotesque in a baggy suit of striped pyjamas, with one wrist enclosed as in a steel band by the gripped fingers of Petrie.