“They’re all behindhand,” thought Nicky-Nan.  “Better fit the good woman hadn’ been so forward to despise my helpin’.”

He peered in cautiously.  The room was uninhabited; stark bare of furniture, save for the quadrant key left to hang from the midmost beam; the “hellen “-slated floor clean as a new pin.

Nicky-Nan heaved a sigh.  “So they’ve gone,” he thought to himself; “an’ so we all pass out, one after another.  A decent, cleanly woman, with all her kinks o’ temper.  Much like my own mother, as I remember her.”

He passed into his parlour, laid down hat and walking-staff, and of a sudden pulled himself upright, rigid.

Footsteps were treading the floor overhead.

For a moment it shook him almost to faintness.  Then, swiftly, wrath came to his aid, and snatching up his staff again he stumped out to the foot of the stairway.

“Who’s that, up there?”

“Ha! . . .  Is that you, Nanjivell,” answered the voice of Mr Pamphlett.  “A domiciliary visit, and no harm intended.”  The figure of Mr Pamphlett blocked the head of the landing.

Nicky-Nan raised his stick and shook it in a fury.

“You get out within this minute, or I’ll have the law of ’ee.”

“Gently, my friend,” responded Mr Pamphlett soothingly.  “I have the Constable here with me, besides Mr Gilbert the builder.  And here’s my Ejectment Order, if you drive me to it.”

“When you promised me—­” stammered Nicky-Nan, escalading the stairs and holding his staff before him as if storming a breach.

“But,”—­Mr Pamphlett waved a hand,—­“we need not talk about ejectment orders.  By the terms of your lease, if you will examine them, the landlord is entitled to examine his premises at any reasonable hour.  You won’t deny this to be a reasonable hour. . . .  Well, constable?  What about that cupboard?”

Nicky-Nan, reaching the doorway, gave a gasp.  Across the room Rat-it-all, on hands and knees, had pulled open the door of the fatal cupboard, and had thrust in head and shoulders, exploring.

“There’s a loose piece of flooring here, Mr Pamphlett.  New, by the looks of it.”

There was a sound of boards being shaken and thrown together in a heap.

“Queer old cache here below. . . .  Steady, now . . . wait till I turn my bull’s-eye on it!  Lucky I brought the lantern, too!”

“You dare!” screamed Nicky-Nan, rushing to pull him backward by the collar.

The constable, his head in the bowels of the hiding-place, neither heard him nor saw Mr Pamphlett and Builder Gilbert interpose to hold Nicky-Nan back.

“But ’tis empty,” announced Policeman Rat-it-all.

“Empty?”

EMPTY?

Nicky-Nan, bursting from the two men, gripped Rat-it-all by the collar, flung him back on the floor, snatched his bull’s-eye, and diving as a rabbit into its burrow, plunged the lantern’s ray into the gulf.