CRIMINALS, CHEMICALS, AND A CRUCIBLE. Smoking may, as some good folk aver, be a vile and filthy habit, but it was the fact that I am a smoker which saved my life that night. On my way to the den I had fancied a pipe, and finding I had no matches, had been at the outlay of a penny in the purchase of a box. But for the fact that I happened to have these lucifers with me, and so was able to obtain a light, I should have blundered into the trap that was so cunningly set for me. But for the fact that, in the moment of striking the match, the light had fallen upon the kitchen door, and I had seen that a key stood in the lock on the outside, I might never have needed pipe or matches more. To remount the stairs would have been madness, for the four men--two above and two below--would thus have me at such disadvantage between them, that my fight for life was likely to be short. To go forward, weaponless as I was, with two armed and sturdy ruffians waiting for me at the street door and possibly with two others prepared to act as reinforcements outside--would have been equally mad, especially as the leader and his confederate were already almost on my heels, and so could knock me on the head from behind. But the key on the outside of the kitchen door offered me the chance at least of a fight for my life. Whisking it out, quicker than any conjuror, I threw open the door, and shutting it with a bang as I entered the kitchen, set my left knee and the whole weight of my shoulders and body against the panels, while I slipped the key into its place, and, turning it, locked myself in, and my opponents out. The next moment I heard the voice of the leader on the stairs outside: "What's that? Who's gone into the kitchen? You cursed bunglers! Don't say you haven't killed your man. He mustn't leave the place alive. It's Robert Grant, the detective. I'd had word that he'd tracked us, and meant trying to get in here to-night. Parker and Smudgy, fast as you can to the yard. If you look slippy and put your back into it, you'll be in time to cut off his escape, should he try to get out behind. If he does, kill him on the spot. No mistake about it this time, mind, even if you have to shoot! Now go. Joggers, you and I'll see to things this side. First shut and lock the front door, and pocket the key. It'll be safer so. We've got to break in this door, and if he managed to rush us, he might slip past, and so get out. Have you got your knife and revolver handy? Be ready to use 'em the instant the door's down." Clearly I had no time to spare. Striking another vesta I took one lightning peep around. By the light I saw that what, when I had peeped into the room before, I had taken to be an ordinary kitchen copper, was a strange-looking vat, with something like a stove under it.