outlines, so long as memory endures, will never fade.  Certainly no professional burglar, nor, indeed, any creature in his senses, would have ventured to emulate my surprising rashness.  The process of smashing the pane of glass—­it was plate glass—­was anything but a noiseless one.  There was, first, the blow itself, then the shivering of the glass, then the clattering of fragments into the area beneath.  One would have thought that the whole thing would have made din enough to have roused the Seven Sleepers.  But, here, again the weather was on my side.  About that time the wind was howling wildly,—­it came shrieking across the square.  It is possible that the tumult which it made deadened all other sounds.

Anyhow, as I stood within the room which I had violated, listening for signs of someone being on the alert, I could hear nothing.  Within the house there seemed to be the silence of the grave.  I drew down the window, and made for the door.

It proved by no means easy to find.  The windows were obscured by heavy curtains, so that the room inside was dark as pitch.  It appeared to be unusually full of furniture,—­an appearance due, perhaps, to my being a stranger in the midst of such Cimmerian blackness.  I had to feel my way, very gingerly indeed, among the various impedimenta.  As it was I seemed to come into contact with most of the obstacles there were to come into contact with, stumbling more than once over footstools, and over what seemed to be dwarf chairs.  It was a miracle that my movements still continued to be unheard,—­but I believe that the explanation was, that the house was well built; that the servants were the only persons in it at the time; that their bedrooms were on the top floor; that they were fast asleep; and that they were little likely to be disturbed by anything that might occur in the room which I had entered.

Reaching the door at last, I opened it,—­listening for any promise of being interrupted—­and—­to adapt a hackneyed phrase—­directed by the power which shaped my end, I went across the hall and up the stairs.  I passed up the first landing, and, on the second, moved to a door upon the right.  I turned the handle, it yielded, the door opened, I entered, closing it behind me.  I went to the wall just inside the door, found a handle, jerked it, and switched on the electric light,—­doing, I make no doubt, all these things, from a spectator’s point of view, so naturally, that a judge and jury would have been with difficulty persuaded that they were not the product of my own volition.

In the brilliant glow of the electric light I took a leisurely survey of the contents of the room.  It was, as the man in the bed had said it would be, a study,—­a fine, spacious apartment, evidently intended rather for work than for show.  There were three separate writing-tables, one very large and two smaller ones, all covered with an orderly array of manuscripts and papers.  A typewriter