“I don’t suppose he has learnt any new ones,” he murmured regretfully, “he is getting very old.” He took stock of the walls. They were covered with paintings and engravings. “He could not have fixed the cross fire in a modern house,” he continued, and taking a little run, leapt the rug and rested for a moment on the bottom stair. A suit of half armor on the first landing held him in thoughtful attention for a moment. “Elizabethan body, with a Spanish bayonet,” he said regretfully; “that doesn’t look like a collector’s masterpiece.” He flashed the lamp up and down the silent figure that stood in menacing attitude with a raised battle-ax. “I don’t like that ax,” he murmured, and measured the distance. Then he saw the fine wire that stretched across the landing. He stepped across carefully, and ranged himself alongside the steel knight. Slipping off his coat, he reached up and caught the figure by the wrist. Then with a quick jerk of his foot he snapped the wire. He had been prepared for the mechanical downfall of the ax; but as the wire broke the figure turned to the right, and swish! came the ax in a semicircular cut. He had thought to hold the arm as it descended, but he might as well have tried to hold the piston-rod of an engine. His hand was wrenched away, and the razor-like blade of the ax missed his head by the fraction of a second. Then with a whir the arm rose stiffly again to its original position and remained rigid. The visitor moistened his lips and sighed. “That’s a new one, a very new one,” he said under his breath, and the admiration in his tone was evident. He picked up his overcoat, flung it over his arm, and mounted half a dozen steps to the next landing. The inspection of the Chinese cabinet was satisfactory. The white beam of his lamp flashed into corners and crevices and showed nothing. He shook the curtain of a window and listened, holding his breath. “Not here,” he muttered decisively, “the old man wouldn’t try _that_ game. Snakes turned loose in a house in London, S.W., take a deal of collecting in the morning.” He looked round. From the landing access was gained to three rooms. That which from its position he surmised faced the street he did not attempt to enter. The second, covered by a heavy curtain, he looked at for a time in thought. To the third he walked, and carefully swathing the door-handle with his silk muffler, he turned it. The door yielded. He hesitated another moment, and jerking the door wide open, sprang backward. The interior of the room was for a second only in pitch darkness, save for the flicker of light that told of an open fireplace. Then the visitor heard a click, and the room was flooded with light. In the darkness on the landing the man waited; then a voice, a cracked old voice, said grumblingly-- “Come in.” Still the man on the landing waited. “Oh, come in, Jimmy--I know ye.”