At the end of the passage a pale, dim oblong of light indicated the position of the door leading on to the verandah. Freyberger came down the passage towards the door, and then, himself plunged in utter darkness, he stood, like fate, waiting. He could see the squares of glass forming the verandah wall and, dimly, the garden beyond. Presently, moving with sinister gentleness and silence, the vague silhouette of a man came gliding along the verandah side till it reached the outside door. The man was, as far as Freyberger could see, muffled up in a great coat; he wore a slouch hat and he was about the middle height. When he reached the door, he paused and drew from his pocket something, the form of which the detective could not distinguish. Freyberger had left the door, it will be remembered, simply closed. He could easily have locked it from the inside by the same method as he had opened it, but he had determined to leave it as it was. The man turned the handle of the door, found that it opened easily, made a slight exclamation of surprise and slipped into the verandah with the rapidity of a lizard. He closed the door behind him. Freyberger, standing in the passage as motionless as a corpse, scarcely breathed. The man stood for a moment, glancing around him, then, leaving the verandah, he came down the passage. The next moment Freyberger was upon him. A man attacked in this fashion does not cry out; if he emits any sound it is the gasp of a person who has received a douche of cold water. The attack of Freyberger was ferocious, overpowering, unexpected, yet it was received as if by a rock. After the first shock, which nearly bore him to the ground, the intruder stiffened; to the grip of iron he responded by a grip of steel, and then, in the dark, between the narrow walls of the passage, a terrible struggle began. A listener in the verandah would have heard very little. Just the hard breathing of the two antagonists and the sound of their bodies hurled from side to side against the passage walls. The detective was a heavier man than his antagonist, but they were equally matched in science. Now and then Freyberger succeeded in lifting him from his feet and, with desperate efforts, attempted to bear him backwards and throw him; but the feet always came to ground again, and the body turned from the helpless bundle that a man is who has lost possession of his feet, into an inflexible statue of steel. Freyberger, failing in this, relaxed, or seemed to relax, his efforts for a moment; the other automatically responded, a second later. With a crash they were on the floor, the detective with his knees on the arms of his fallen antagonist. He had cross-buttocked him. There is no position on earth where a man is more utterly helpless than when lying upon the ground, with another man kneeling upon his arms. He may kick and struggle as much as he pleases, the only result is to wear out his strength.