By the faint light from outside I could see him stooping, not in front of the door, but behind it.  And it was well he did, for the moment the key was on the other side, a shot zipped through one of the lower panels.  I had not expected it and it set me to shivering.

“No more of that, George,” said Sperry calmly and cheerfully.  “This is a quiet neighborhood, and we don’t like shooting.  What is more, my friend here is very expert with his own particular weapon, and at any moment he may go to the fire-place in the library and—­”

I have no idea why Sperry chose to be facetious at that time, and my resentment rises as I record it.  For when we reached the yard we heard the officer running along the alley-way, calling as he ran.

“The fence, quick,” Sperry said.

I am not very good at fences, as a rule, but I leaped that one like a cat, and came down in a barrel of waste-paper on the other side.  Getting me out was a breathless matter, finally accomplished by turning the barrel over so that I could crawl out.  We could hear the excited voices of the two men beyond the fence, and we ran.  I was better than Sperry at that.  I ran like a rabbit.  I never even felt my legs.  And Sperry pounded on behind me.

We heard, behind us, one of the men climbing the fence.  But in jumping down he seemed to have struck the side of the overturned barrel.  Probably it rolled and threw him, for that part of my mind which was not intent on flight heard him fall, and curse loudly.

“Go to it,” Sperry panted behind me.  “Roll over and break your neck.”

This, I need hardly explain, was meant for our pursuer.

We turned a corner and were out on one of the main thoroughfares.  Instantly, so innate is cunning to the human brain, we fell to walking sedately.

It was as well that we did, for we had not gone a half block before we saw our policeman again, lumbering toward us and blowing a whistle as he ran.

“Stop and get this street-car,” Sperry directed me.  “And don’t breathe so hard.”

The policeman stared at us fixedly, stopping to do so, but all he saw was two well-dressed and professional-looking men, one of them rather elderly who was hailing a street-car.  I had the presence of mind to draw my watch and consult it.

“Just in good time,” I said distinctly, and we mounted the car step.  Sperry remained on the platform and lighted a cigar.  This gave him a chance to look back.

“Rather narrow squeak, that,” he observed, as he came in and sat down beside me.  “Your gray hairs probably saved us.”

I was quite numb from the waist down, from my tumble and from running, and it was some time before I could breathe quietly.  Suddenly Sperry fell to laughing.

“I wish you could have seen yourself in that barrel, and crawling out,” he said.

We reached Mrs. Dane’s, to find that Miss Jeremy had already arrived, looking rather pale, as I had noticed she always did before a seance.  Her color had faded, and her eyes seemed sunken in her head.