The Baron Arnim's valet, to all the purposes of usefulness in life, was a bundled mummy. "Phew!" said Crabb, when it was done. "Poor devil! But it can't be helped. He mustn't see or know. And now for it." Crabb produced a bunch of skeleton keys and an electric bull's-eye. He tried the keys rapidly. In a moment the dispatch-box was opened and its contents exposed to view. "Carefully now," whispered Crabb. "What should it look like?" "A foolscap-shaped thing in silk covers with dangling cords," said Ross. "There, under your hand." In a moment they had it out and between them on the desk. There it was, in all truth, written in two columns, Chinese on the one side, French on the other. "Are you sure?" said Crabb. "Sure! Sure as I'm a thief in the night!" "Then sit and write, man. Write as you never wrote before. I'll listen and watch Rameses the Second." In the twenty minutes during which Burnett fearfully wrote, Crabb stood listening at the doors and windows for sounds of servants or approaching carriages. The man swaddled in the sheets made a few futile struggles and then subsided. Burnett's eyes gleamed. Other eyes than his would gleam at what he saw and wrote. When he finished he closed the document, removed all traces of his work, replaced it in the iron box and shut the lid. He dropped the precious sheets into an inner pocket and was moving toward the window when Crabb seized him by the arm. There was a step in the hallway without, and the door opened. There, stout and grizzled, his walrus mustache bristling with surprise, in all the distinction of gold lace and orders, stood Baron Arnim. CHAPTER V For a moment there was no sound. The burglars looked at the Baron and the Baron looked at the burglars, mouths and eyes open alike. Then, even before Crabb could display his intimidating revolver, the German had disappeared through the door screaming at the top of his lungs. "Quick! Out of the window!" said Crabb, helping Burnett over the sill. "Down you go--I'll follow. Don't fall. If you miss your footing, we're ruined." Burnett scrambled out, over the coping and down the ladder, Crabb almost on his fingers. But they reached the yard in safety and were out in the alley running in the shadow of the fence before a venturesome head stuck forth from the open window and a revolver blazed into the vacant air. "The devil!" said Crabb. "They'll have every copper in the city on us in a minute. This way." He turned into a narrow alley at right angles to the other. "Off with the coat as you go--now, the mustache and grease paint. Take your time. Into this sewer with the coats. So!" Two gentlemen in light topcoats, one in a cap, the other in a hat, walked up N street arm in arm, thickly singing. Their shirt fronts and hair were rumpled, their legs were not too steady, and they clung affectionately to each other for support and sang thickly. A window flew up and a tousled head appeared. "Hey!" yelled a voice. "Burglars in the alley!"