He decided to penetrate first into the bedroom, partly because he deemed the bedroom might contain the solution of the enigma, and partly because his eye had fancied it saw a slight tremor in the portiere leading to the outer hall.  So he stepped stoutly across the space which separated him from the bedroom door.  But he had not reached the door before there was a loud, sharp explosion, and a panel of the door splintered and showed a hole, and he thought he heard a faint cry.

A revolver shot!

He did not believe in anything so far-fetched as man-traps and spring-guns.  Hence there must be some person or persons in the flat.  Some unseen intelligence was following him.  Some mysterious will had ordained that he should not enter that bedroom.  The shot was a warning.  He guessed from the flight of the splinters and the appearance of the hole that the mysterious will must be on the other side of the portiere, but the portiere gave no sign.

What was he to do?  He had brought with him no weapon.  He had not anticipated that revolvers would be needed in the exploration of an empty and forbidden flat.  The very definite terrors of the inner hall seemed to him to surpass the vaguer terrors of the drawing-room, and he decided to return thither in order to consider quietly what his tactics should be; if necessary, he could return to the dome for arms and assistance.  But no sooner did he move a foot towards the drawing-room than another shot sounded.  The drawing-room portiere trembled, and something crashed within the apartment.  The mysterious will had ardently decided that he should go neither back nor forward.

‘Who’s there?  Who’s that shooting?’ he muttered thickly, and extinguished his lamp.

He had meant to cry out loud, but, to his intense surprise, his throat was dried up.

There was no answer, no stir, no noise.  The silence that exists between the stars seemed to close in upon him.  Then he really knew what fear was.  He admitted to himself that he was unmistakably and horribly afraid.  He admitted that life was inconceivably precious, and the instinct to preserve it the greatest of all instincts.  And gradually he came to see that the safest course was the most desperate course, and gradually his courage triumphed over his fear.

He dropped gently to his hands and knees, and began, with a thousand precautions, to crawl like a serpent towards the outer hall.  The darkened lamp he held between his teeth.  If the mysterious will fired again, the mysterious will would almost to a certainty fire harmlessly over his head.  At last his hands touched the portiere.  He hesitated, listened, and put one hand under the portiere.  Then, relighting the lamp, he sprang up with a yell on the other side of the portiere, and clutched for the unseen intelligence.

But there was nothing.  He stood alone in the outer hall.  To his right lay the side-passage between the drawing-room and the cabinet de toilette, which Camilla had used on the night of her engagement.  In front of him was a door, slightly ajar, which led to the servants’ quarters.  He gazed around, breathing heavily.