Two steps on tip-toe brought him to it, and he placed his fingers on the key.

But he recollected a better way.

There was one of those bolts that rise and fall perpendicularly in a series of rings, and bar or open the door by a touch to a rope connected with it by a wire and a crank or two.
He let the bolt softly drop into its place; the rope was within easy reach, and with his spectacles gleaming white on the door, he kept humming a desultory tune, like a man over some listless occupation.
Mr.Paul Dangerfield was listening intently, and stepped as softly as a cat.

Then, with a motion almost elegant, he dropt his right hand lightly into his coat-pocket, where it lay still in ambuscade.
There came a puffing night air along the passage, and rattled the door; then a quiet shutting of the hall-door, and a shuffling and breathing near the parlour.
Dangerfield, humming his idle tune with a white and sharpening face, and a gaze that never swerved, extended his delicately-shaped fingers to the rope, and held it in his left hand.

At this moment the door-handle was suddenly turned outside, and the door sustained a violent jerk.
'Who's there ?' demanded the harsh, prompt accents of Dangerfield, suspending his minstrelsy.