He could see one wall of the Old House—a dead flat facade of chipped and mouldering brick, broken only by four symmetrically placed windows and a door. The door was a godsend. The windows themselves were roughly boarded up, and to prise off those boards, though it could be done in a brace of shakes, would be rather too audible for the Saint’s taste; whereas a mere door could probably be dealt with, by an expert, almost noiselessly. The Saint wormed his way forwards, fitting himself as snugly as he could into the angle between the wall and the ground and taking infinite pains to make no sound that might betray his approach to a keen ear within. From the moment he left the shelter of the wall, however, he was in danger of discovery, for if any sentinel had elected to peer out of a window the Saint would be lucky to be overlooked. The watcher would probably scrutinise the nearest cover, in which case his gaze would pass right above the Saint; but on the other hand the enemy might be well aware of the possibilities of that too convenient wall, and in that case anyone who was taking a peek round would certainly cast an eye downwards, and then the Saint wouldn’t have an earthly. That salutary realisation made him wriggle along as fast as he could with safety, and it must be admitted that his spine was tingling and the short hairs on the scruff of his neck bristling throughout that dozen yards’ crawl. It is not pleasant to have visions of a man sticking a gun out of an upper window and plugging a chunk of lead down into your back. But his head came on a level with the door at last, and nothing so disastrous had happened. The Saint crept up into a squatting position and, tentatively, began to breathe again, while he inspected the door at close quarters. He found that the handle had snapped off short—in fact, he discovered the tarnished brass ball lying under a bush a few yards away. The lock was rusty, and the door sagged on its hinges. The Saint scratched his head. Either the Old House was not the goods at all, or the Tiger Cubs were banking a lot on its reputation of being haunted. He looked again and more closely at the broken end of the handle lever protruding from the door, and caught his breath. The jagged metal was shining—not a trace of the rust that flaked over the rest of the metal dulled its brilliance. That was a new break! Even in forty-eight hours the exposed steel would have lost some of that sheen. Therefore, someone had been there recently. And unless the village children were less superstitious than their elders, that meant that the Tiger Cubs had graced the premises. Simon put his hand on the door and pushed gently. It gave back smoothly at his touch.