I acted on the idea immediately; the dog
rushed in after the beef; I heard a snap, a
wheeze, a choke, and a groan,—and
there was the mastiff disposed of, inside the
kennel, where nobody could find out that he
was dead till the time came for feeding him
the next morning.

I went back to the doctor; we had a social
glass of cold brandy-and-water together, I
lighted another cigar, and took my leave. My
host being too respectable a man not to keep
early country hours, I went away, as usual,
about ten. The mysterious man-servant
locked the gate behind me. I sauntered on
the road back to Barkingham for about five
minutes, then struck off sharp for the plantation,
lighted my lanthorn with the help of my
cigar and a brimstone match of that barbarous
period, shut down the slide again, and made
for the garden wall.

It was formidably high, and garnished
horribly with broken bottles; but it was
also old, and when I came to pick at the
mortar with my screw-driver, I found it
reasonably rotten with age and damp. I
removed four bricks to make foot-holes in
different positions up the wall. It was
desperately hard and long work, easy as it may
sound in description—especially when I had
to hold on by the top of the wall, with my flat
opera hat (as we used to call it in those days)
laid, as a guard, between my hand and the
glass, while I cleared a way through the sharp
bottle-ends for my other hand and my knees.
This done, my great difficulty was vanquished;
and I had only to drop luxuriously into a
flower-bed on the other side of the wall.

Perfect stillness in the garden: no sign of
a light anywhere at the back of the house:
first-floor windows all shut: second-floor
windows still open. I fetched the pruning-
ladder; put it against the side of the porch;
tied one end of my bit of rope to the top
round of it; took the other end in my mouth,
and prepared to climb to the balcony over
the porch by the thick vine branches and the
trellis-work. No man who has had any real
experience of life, can have failed to observe
how amazingly close, in critical situations,
the grotesque and the terrible, the comic and
the serious, contrive to tread on each other's
heels. At such times, the last thing we ought
properly to think of comes into our heads,
or the least consistent event that could
possibly be expected to happen, does actually
occur. When I put my life in danger on that
memorable night, by putting my foot on
the trellis-work, I absolutely thought of the
never dying Lady Malkinshaw plunged in
refreshing slumber, and of the frantic
exclamations Mr. Batterbury would utter if he
saw what her ladyship's grandson was doing
with his precious life and limbs at that
critical moment. I am no hero—I was fully
aware of the danger to which I was exposing
myself; and yet I protest that I caught
myself laughing under my breath, with the
most outrageous inconsistency, at the instant
when I began the ascent of the trellis-work.

I reached the balcony over the porch in
safety, depending more upon the tough vine
branches than the trellis-work, during my
ascent. My next employment was to pull up
the pruning-ladder, as softly as possible, by
the rope which I held attached to it. This
done, I put the ladder against the house
wall, listened, measured the distance to the
open second-floor window with my eye,
listened again—and, finding all quiet, began my
second and last ascent. The ladder was
comfortably long, and I was comfortably tall;
my hand was on the window-sill—I mounted
another two rounds—and my eyes were level
with the interior of the room.

Suppose any one should be sleeping there!
I listened at the window attentively before I
ventured on taking my lantern out of my
coat pocket. The night was so quiet and
airless, that there was not the faintest rustle
among the leaves in the garden beneath me
to distract my attention. I listened. The
breathing of the lightest of sleepers must
have reached my ear, through that intense
stillness, if the room had been a bedroom,
and the bed were occupied. I heard nothing
but the beat of my own heart. The minutes
of suspense were passing heavily—I laid my
other hand over the window-sill, then a
moment of doubt came—doubt whether I
should carry the adventure any farther. I
mastered my hesitation directly—it was too
late then for second thoughts. "Now for
it!" I whispered to myself, and got in at the
window.

To wait listening again, in the darkness of
that unknown region was more than I had
courage for. The moment I was down on the
floor, I pulled the lanthorn out of my pocket,
and raised the shade. So far, so good—I
found myself in a dirty lumber room. Large
pans, some of them cracked, and more of
them broken; empty boxes bound with iron,
of the same sort as those I had seen the
workmen bringing in at the front gate;
old coal sacks; a packing-case full of coke;
and a huge, cracked, mouldy, blacksmith's
bellows—these were the principal objects that
I observed in the lumber-room. The one
door leading out of it was open, as I had
expected it would be, in order to let the air
through the back window into the house. I
took off my shoes, and stole into the
passage. My first impulse, the moment I looked
along it, was to shut down my lanthorn shade,
and listen again.

Still I heard nothing; but at the far end
of the passage, I saw a bright light pouring
through the half-opened door of one of the
mysterious front rooms. I crept softly
towards it. A decidedly chemical smell began
to steal into my nostrils—and, listening again,
I thought I heard, above me and in some
distant room, a noise like the low growl of a large
furnace, muffled in some peculiar manner.