Whether wisely or unwisely, however, I had instituted the inquiry, and could not now draw back. The inspector himself took the small bag containing a serviceable-looking housebreaker's jemmy and other tools, and as we came to the area handed it down to the man below. Then both of us scrambled over the locked gate and descended the steps to the basement door by which it had been decided to enter. The plain-clothes man was something of a mechanic, I could see, for he was soon at work upon the lock, yet although he tried for a full quarter of an hour to open the door, it resisted all his efforts. "It's bolted," he declared at last, wiping the perspiration from his brow. "We must try the front door. That's no doubt only on the latch. If we force this they'll know we've been here, while if we force the latch we can put that right again before we leave." "Very well, Edwards," was the inspector's reply. "Go up alone and do it. It won't do for us both to be up with you. Force the latch, and let us trust to luck to be able to put it right again. We'll have to lay a trap here--of that I feel sure." The man ascended to the door above us, but scarcely had he done so when we heard the hoarse cry of "_Star_--extrar spe-shall!" from the further end of the street--the pre-arranged signal warning us of someone approaching. Edwards therefore slipped down the steps and walked in the opposite direction until the two men who had entered the street had passed. Then Edwards sprang up the steps again, and after trying the lock with a number of keys we suddenly heard a low crack, and then there was silence. "All right," he whispered to us over the railings, and a minute later we were standing inside the dark hall of the house wherein I had so nearly lost my life. Edwards closed the door behind us noiselessly, and we were compelled to grope forward in the pitch darkness, for the inspector deemed it wise to draw down the blinds before lighting our lanterns, for fear our movements should attract notice from without. Edwards entered the front room on the right, stumbling over some furniture, and pulled down the dark holland blind, while a moment later a rapping on the front door announced the arrival of the man who had been watching to cover our movements. The policemen's lanterns, when lit, revealed an old-fashioned room furnished solidly in leather--a dining-room, though there were no evidences of it having been recently used. Behind it, entered by folding doors, was another sitting-room with heavy well-worn furniture covered with old-fashioned horsehair. In the room was a modern roll-top writing-table, the drawers of which Pickering reserved for future investigation. "Be careful of the stairs," I said, as Edwards started to ascend them. "The dangerous ones are nearly at the top of the second storey. There's no danger on the first floor."