"By gracious, I don’t half like this," thought Nick, pausing to consider the situation. "There is no getting out unaided by the way I entered. I can bang on this other door, of course, and raise some one in the house, who could come down and liberate me. That would necessitate a truthful explanation, however, and the story might leak out. "It would be embarrassing, at least, to read in all of the newspapers that the famous New York detective was caught and cornered in such a hole as this by a midnight marauder. The sensational journals would feature it with red letters, for fair, and make the most of it. I don’t think I could stand for that. "Instead of raising any one, therefore, I’ll try to quietly open this other door, which evidently leads into a basement hall. If I can enter unheard, I then can steal up to the main hall and out through the front door. None will then be the wiser, as far as I am concerned, and Goulard will not be fool enough to expose me. He will foresee, of course, that I shall keep my mouth closed. Let the crafty rascal alone to feel sure of that." Having decided that to be the easiest way out of his dilemma, Nick turned his attention to the door leading to the basement hall. He found it had only an ordinary lock, and that the key had been removed. "Well, well, this will be soft walking," he said to himself. "I can open it with a picklock in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. In a minute more, that done, I can slip out of the house unheard." Fishing out a ring of keys on which he had the practical little implement mentioned, Nick quietly inserted it into the lock, and a moment later he noiselessly shot the bolt and opened the door. Then began the series of sensational episodes that made his work of that night so noteworthy. Nick stepped into the basement hall, then quietly closed the door, locking it with a key found hanging on a nail near the casing, and which he discovered by means of his searchlight. He then paused and listened vainly for any sound from the floors above. Obviously, no one in the house had yet been disturbed. "The way is open, all right, so here goes," he said to himself, after a moment. A flash from his searchlight revealed the stairway leading to the main hall. Nick tiptoed toward it and began the ascent. The top of the stairway ended near the middle of the main hall, and under the rise of stairs leading up to the next floor. Nick arrived at the top stair, holding his breath, treading as if on eggs, and feeling his way by means of the wall on one side and the baluster rail on the other. Despite his exceeding care, however, the top stair creaked slightly under his weight. The noise, though hardly perceptible under ordinary conditions, fell audibly on the surrounding stillness. It was instantly followed by another, hardly more perceptible, but sufficient to make the detective doubly alert. The sound came from a room across the hall, the door of which was open.