he was holding a volume
in his hands with the careful ease of a book fancier. The man's back was
turned so that a sandy head and a strongly built figure were all
Geoffrey could make out. Had it not been for a glimpse of a mask on his
face, he might have been a student at work.

So intent did he appear that Geoffrey could not resist the temptation to
make his entrance dramatic. Creeping almost to the other's elbow,
revolver in hand, he said gently:

"Fond of reading?"

The man, naturally startled, made a surprisingly quick movement toward
his own revolver, and had it knocked out of his hand with a benumbing
blow. Geoffrey secured the weapon, and seeing the man's retreat, may be
excused for supposing the struggle over.

He underestimated his adversary's resources, for the burglar, retreating
with a look of surrender, came within reach of the electric light,
turned it off, and fled in the total darkness that followed. Geoffrey
sprang to the switch, but the few seconds that his fingers were fumbling
for it told against him. When he turned it on the room was empty. The
door by which the thief had gone opened on the main hall and not on the
passageway, so that Geoffrey still had time to secure the outer door.
Next he lit the chandelier in the hall, but its illumination told
nothing. It was Geoffrey's own sharp ears that told him of light
footsteps beyond the turn of the stairs. Here Holland recognised at once
that the burglar had a great advantage. The flight of stairs from the
hall reached the upper story at a point very near where the back stairs
came up, while they descended to widely different places in the lower
story, so that the burglar, looking down, could choose his flight of
stairs as soon as he saw his pursuer committed to the other, and thus
reach the lower hall with several seconds to spare. Fortunately,
however, Geoffrey remembered that there was a door at the foot of the
back stairs. With incredible quickness he turned off the light again,
threw his boots upstairs in the ingenious hope that the sound would give
the effect of his own ascent, dashed round and locked the door at the
foot of the stairs and then at the top of his speed ran up the front
stairs and down the back. The result was somewhat as he expected. The
burglar had reached the door at the foot of the stairs, and finding it
locked was half way up again when he and Geoffrey met. The impetus of
Geoffrey's descent carried the man backward. They bo