He gagged him scientifically, and trussed him up with his own belt and two straps from a trunk in my bedroom.
'This man is too dangerous to let go,' he said, as if his procedure were the most ordinary thing in the world.

'He will be quiet now till we have time to make a plan.' At that moment there came a knocking at the door.

That is the sort of thing that happens in melodrama, just when the villain has finished off his job neatly.

The correct thing to do is to pale to the teeth, and with a rolling, conscience-stricken eye glare round the horizon.

But that was not Peter's way.
'We'd better tidy up if we're to have visitors,' he said calmly.
Now there was one of those big oak German cupboards against the wall which must have been brought in in sections, for complete it would never have got through the door.