“Well, I locked the gate myself this afternoon.  So he’s got a key.  I shall manage him all right.  We’ll get the fire-extinguishers.  There’s about a dozen of ’em, I should think, in this house.  They’re rather heavy, but we can do it.”

Turning on the light in the hall, she immediately lifted from its hook a red-coloured metal cone about twenty inches long and eight inches in diameter at the base.  “In case of fire drive in knob by hard blow against floor, and let liquid play on flames,” she read the instructions on the side.  “I know them things,” she said.  “It spurts out like a fountain, and it’s a rather nasty chemistry sort of a fluid.  I shall take one downstairs to the scullery, and the others we’ll have upstairs in the room over Miss Nickall’s.  We can put ’em in the housemaid’s lift....  I shall open the scullery door and leave it a bit open like, and when he comes in I’ll be ready for him behind the door with this.  If he thinks he can come spying after our Janey like this——­”

“But——­” Miss Ingate began.

“You aren’t feeling very well, are ye, miss?” Susan Foley demanded, as she put two extinguishers into the housemaid’s lift.  “Better go and sit down in the parlour.  You won’t be wanted.  Mrs. Moncreiff and me can manage.”

“Yes, we can!” agreed Audrey enthusiastically.  “Run along, Winnie.”

After about two minutes of hard labour Susan ran away and brought a key to Audrey.

“You sneak out,” she said, “and lock the gate on him.  I lay he’ll want a new suit of clothes when I done with him!”

Ecstatically, joyfully, Audrey took the key and departed.  Miss Ingate was sitting in the hall, staring about her like an undecided bird.  Audrey crept round into the side street.  Nobody was in sight.  She could not see over the railings, but she could see between them into the abyss of the area.  The man was there.  She could distinguish his dark form against the inner wall.  With every conspiratorial precaution, she pulled the gate to, inserted the key, and locked it.

A light went up in the scullery window, of which the blind was drawn.  The man peeped at the sides of the blind.  Then the scullery door was opened.  The man started.  A piece of wood was thrown out on to the floor of the area, and the door swung outwards.  Then the light in the scullery was extinguished.  The man waited a few moments.  He had noticed that the door was not quite closed, and the interstice irresistibly fascinated him.  He approached and put his hand against the door.  It yielded.  He entered.  The next instant there was a bang and a cry, and a strong spray of white liquid appeared, in the middle of which was the man’s head.  The door slammed and a bolt was shot.  The man, spluttering, coughing, and swearing, rubbed his eyes and wiped water from his face with his hands.  His hat was on the ground.  At first he could not see at all, but presently he felt his way towards the steps and began to climb them.  Audrey ran off towards the corner.  She could see and hear him shaking the gate and then trying to get a key into it.  But as Audrey had left her key in the other side of the lock, he failed in the attempt.