The picture gallery of Rudge Hall, the receptacle of what Mrs. Soapy Molloy had called the antiques and all like that, was situated on the second floor of that historic edifice. To Mr. Carmody, at five-thirty on the following morning, as he propped against the broad sill of the window facing the moat a ladder, which he had discovered in one of the barns, it looked much higher. He felt, as he gazed upward, like an inexpert Jack about to mount the longest bean stalk on record. Even as a boy, Lester Carmody had never been a great climber. While his young companions, reckless of risk to life and limb, had swarmed to the top of apple trees, Mr. Carmody had preferred to roam about on solid ground, hunting in the grass for windfalls. He had always hated heights, and this morning found him more prejudiced against them than ever. It says much for crime as a wholesome influence in a man's life that the lure of the nefarious job which he had undertaken should have induced him eventually after much hesitation to set foot on the ladder's lowest rung. Nothing but a single-minded desire to do down an innocent insurance company could have lent him the necessary courage. Mind having triumphed over matter to this extent, Mr. Carmody found the going easier. Carefully refraining from looking down, he went doggedly upward. Only the sound of his somewhat stertorous breathing broke the hushed stillness of the summer morning. As far as the weather was concerned, it was the start of a perfect day. But Mr. Carmody paid no attention to the sunbeams creeping over the dewy grass, nor, when the quiet was broken by the first piping of birds, did he pause to listen. He had not, he considered, time for that sort of thing. He was to have ample leisure later, but of this he was not aware. He continued to climb, using the extreme of caution--a method which, while it helped to ease his mind, necessarily rendered progress slow. Before long, he was suffering from a feeling that he had been climbing this ladder all his life. The thing seemed to have no end. He was now, he felt, at such a distance from the earth that he wondered the air was not more rarefied, and it appeared incredible to him that he should not long since have reached the window sill. Looking up at this point, a thing he had not dared to do before, he found that steady perseverance had brought about its usual result. The sill was only a few inches above his head, and with the realization of this fact there came to him something that was almost a careless jauntiness. He quickened his pace, and treading heavily on an upper rung snapped it in two as if it had been matchwood.