together sufficiently for my rush. Then summoning every muscle in my body to my assistance, I dashed across and at it with every ounce of strength my frame was capable of. Considering the darkness of the room, my steering was not so bad, for my shoulder caught the door just above its centre; there was a great crash a noise of breaking timbers and amid a shower of splinters and general débris I fell headlong through into the passage. By the time it would have taken me to count five, Beckenham was beside me helping me to rise.
"Now stand by for big trouble!" I said, rubbing my shoulder, and every moment expecting to see a door open and a crowd of Prendergast's ruffians come rushing out. "We shall have them on us in a minute."
But to our intense astonishment it was all dead silence in the house. Not a sound of any single kind, save our excited breathing, greeted our ears. We might have broken into an empty house for all we knew the difference.
For nearly five minutes we stood, side by side, waiting for the battle which did not come.
"What on earth does it all mean?" I asked my companion. "That crash of mine was loud enough to wake the dead. Can they have deserted the place, think you, and left us to starve?"
"I can't make it out any more than you can," he answered. "But don't you think we'd better take advantage of their not coming to find a way out?"
"Of course. One of us had better creep down the passage and discover how the land lies. As I'm the stronger, I'll go. You wait here."
Stealthily as a cat I crept along the passage, treading cautiously, for I knew that both our lives depended
