'Twas not at all fear which prompted my eagerness; but I bethought me if I had the loft to myself, and the axe ready to my hand, 'twould be a strange thing if I could not find a way out by the morning. Thereupon we fell to talking again of Groder's attempt upon my life, and he repeated the words which he had used at the time.
"You were never nearer your death but once."
"And when was that once?" I asked drowsily.
He laughed softly to himself for a little, and then he replied; and with his first sentence my drowsiness left me, just as a mist clears in a moment off the hills.
"Do you remember one night in London that your garden door kept slamming in the wind?"
"Well?" said I, starting up.
"You came downstairs in the dark, took the key from the mantelshelf, and went out into the garden and locked it. That occasion was the once."
"You were in the room!" I exclaimed. "I remember. The door was open again in the morning. I had a locksmith to it. There was nothing amiss with the lock, and I wondered how it happened."
Otto laughed again quietly.
"Right. I was in the room, and I was not alone either."