I was handling the weapons, wondering—­if, in my condition, the word was applicable—­what use I could make of them to enable me to gain admission to that drawer, when there came, on a sudden, from the street without, the sound of approaching wheels.  There was a whirring within my brain, as if someone was endeavouring to explain to me to what service to apply the revolvers, and I, perforce, strained every nerve to grasp the meaning of my invisible mentor.  While I did so, the wheels drew rapidly nearer, and, just as I was expecting them to go whirling by, stopped,—­in front of the house.  My heart leapt in my bosom.  In a convulsion of frantic terror, again, during the passage of one frenzied moment, I all but burst the bonds that held me, and fled, haphazard, from the imminent peril.  But the bonds were stronger than I,—­it was as if I had been rooted to the ground.

A key was inserted in the keyhole of the front door, the lock was turned, the door thrown open, firm footsteps entered the house.  If I could I would not have stood upon the order of my going, but gone at once, anywhere, anyhow; but, at that moment, my comings and goings were not matters in which I was consulted.  Panic fear raging within, outwardly I was calm as possible, and stood, turning the revolvers over and over, asking myself what it could be that I was intended to do with them.  All at once it came to me in an illuminating flash,—­I was to fire at the lock of the drawer, and blow it open.

A madder scheme it would have been impossible to hit upon.  The servants had slept through a good deal, but they would hardly sleep through the discharge of a revolver in a room below them,—­ not to speak of the person who had just entered the premises, and whose footsteps were already audible as he came up the stairs.  I struggled to make a dumb protest against the insensate folly which was hurrying me to infallible destruction, without success.  For me there was only obedience.  With a revolver in either hand I marched towards the bureau as unconcernedly as if I would not have given my life to have escaped the denouement which I needed but a slight modicum of common sense to be aware was close at hand.  I placed the muzzle of one of the revolvers against the keyhole of the drawer to which my unseen guide had previously directed me, and pulled the trigger.  The lock was shattered, the contents of the drawer were at my mercy.  I snatched up a bundle of letters, about which a pink ribbon was wrapped.  Startled by a noise behind me, immediately following the report of the pistol, I glanced over my shoulder.

The room door was open, and Mr Lessingham was standing with the handle in his hand.

CHAPTER VII

THE GREAT PAUL LESSINGHAM