He had, no doubt, done his best to deaden the noise he made in breaking the glass; and, far away as the conservatory was from the living rooms and from the servants' quarters, the sound would have passed unheeded but for my abnormally acute sense of hearing. Even if it had been heard, and had Metcalfe or Miss Clara hurried thither, some plausible story of his having been accidentally shut out, or other explanation, would have been forthcoming, and no one was likely to give a respectable householder in charge for forcing his way into his own residence, or to connect the fact of his doing so with a recent murder. That was why, having failed in the first attempt, he had returned, at dead of night--to discover me emerging from the wine cellar. That was why he knew there was a gas-jet laid on there, though he had tried to explain away his knowledge of the fact, and had done his best to throw dust in my eyes, by telling me that he made it a rule never to enter a place without finding out all he could about it beforehand. I could have kicked myself for my density in not having seen daylight before, but the possibility of connecting my lovely Lady of the Lake and her eminently respectable, if somewhat unconventional, aunt with a criminal of the Dumpling type, was so unthinkable that I may, perhaps, be forgiven for not having entertained it until it was thus forced upon me. Of one thing I was certain--that whatever the explanation, the good faith of Kate and Miss Clara was above suspicion. Unknown to them, the man was leading a double life. They may, perhaps, have wondered at his absences from home, and at his trouble in contriving a pretended burglar alarm, which, I had little doubt, had been invented for quite another purpose than was pretended. The fact that he had fitted up a police call for protection against burglars, seemed to point to him as a reputable member of society and a person of means. No doubt, when he was absent from home, the use to which the thing was put was actually that of a burglar alarm. But when he was at home, I thought it more than possible that he would be at the trouble of making a disconnection (it could be done by the turning of a switch) between his house and the police station, and that in cases of emergency--as, for instance, a surprise visit by the police--the so-called burglar alarm could as effectively be used against the officers of the law as against burglars. The simultaneous locking of all doors and windows must necessarily delay the entrance of the officers who had come to arrest him, and in the meantime Mr. Carleton would no doubt be making good his escape by some secret means of exit, known only to himself.