A balustrade guarded this gallery, supported by a boarding wide enough to hide a man lying behind it at his full length.

If the search I was endeavouring to evade was not minute enough to lead them to look behind this boarding, it would offer me the double advantage of concealment and an unobstructed view of what went on in the hall, through the main doorway opening directly opposite.

I could reach this ballroom and its terminal gallery without going around to this door.

A smaller one communicated directly with the corridor in which I was then lurking, and towards this I now made my way with all the precaution suggested by my desperate situation.

No man ever moved more lightly.