Beyond it somewhere were his enemies. It came between him and them. Ha! He gathered himself up with a sudden spring. He got to his hands and knees. Several joints snapped as he did so. His bruised body had grown stiff, lying motionless on the stone floor. Just as he lay that way on his hands and knees, he heard a rattle at the door. Immediately he threw himself down again and pretended to be asleep. But he fell so that his eyes were toward the oblong patch of light. He knew what had rattled. It was the sentry having a look at him. An electric torch was thrust through the aperture. It rested on him for a moment or two. Then it was withdrawn. During the couple of moments that the torch-light had flooded the cell Gypo’s eyes were busy. They had darted around. Yes. The walls were hopeless. He knew that of course. He had himself guarded a prisoner in this same cell, a condemned prisoner whom he and McPhillip and Jem Linnet, the bookmaker’s clerk, had afterwards brought out in a car. He knew the whole routine. Perhaps that knowledge was responsible for his calm, partly responsible. Nothing was uncertain in the near future. In a few minutes they would come for him. Once in the car it would be impossible to escape. All right. His only chance was in the cell. Ha! That was why he was calm and collected. After all, it was neither the darkness nor his knowledge of what was destined to happen that made him calm. McPhillip had at last made a plan. The door . . . the door . . . the door! “Gypo,” he had said one night in Cassidy’s when he was drunk, “if we ever get . . . ye know what I mean, Gyp . . . click . . . you know . . . ye needn’t worry. I can manage that cell easy. Only I’d need you. I’m too small. Listen.” “I’ll do it, Frankie,” mumbled Gypo to himself excitedly, as he crawled along the floor towards the door. He moved like a bear on his hands and knees, with his head down and his haunches high in the air. He moved noiselessly until he reached the door. He felt along the edge of the wall and then drew himself gradually to his feet. For a moment he toyed with the idea of taking off his boots, but he could not remember that Frankie had said anything about that. He decided to leave them on. He reached up with his hands. He strained them to their full length before he reached the top of the stone ledge over the door.