13905    'Yes, I had given Miss Harrison instructions to lock the door on the outside and take the key with her when she went to bed.

13906    She carried out every one of my injunctions to the letter, and certainly without her co-operation you would not have that paper in your coat pocket.

13907    She departed then, the lights went out, and I was left squatting in the rhododendron bush.

13908    'The night was fine, but still it was a very weary vigil.

13909    Of course, it has the sort of excitement about it that the sportsman feels when he lies beside the watercourse and waits for the big game.

13910    It was very long, though - almost as long, Watson, as when you and I waited in that deadly room when we looked into the little problem of the "Speckled Band."

13911    There was a church clock down at Woking which struck the quarters, and I thought more than once that it had stopped.

13912    At last, however, about two in the morning, I suddenly heard the gentle sound of a bolt being pushed back, and the creaking of a key.

13913    A moment later the servants' door was opened and Mr. Joseph Harrison stepped out into the moonlight.'

13914    'Joseph!' ejaculated Phelps.

13915    'He was bare-headed, but he had a black cloak thrown over his shoulder, so that he could conceal his face in an instant if there were any alarm.

13916    He walked on tiptoe under the shadow of the wall, and when he reached the window, he worked a long-bladed knife through the sash and pushed back the catch.

13917    Then he flung open the window and, putting his knife through the crack in the shutters, he thrust the bar up and swung them open.

13918    'From where I lay I had a perfect view of the inside of the room and of every one of his movements.

13919    He lit the two candles which stand upon the mantelpiece, and then he proceeded to turn back the corner of the carpet in the neighbourhood of the door.