"Confound it!" he thought. "It's deuced annoying, but it isn't as bad as all that. I don't know why it should bowl me over. Perhaps there's another way out of this den."
He walked round the room, feeling the wall for some shutter, even searching the floor for a trap-door. There was none. Save for a telephone and the table, he encountered nothing but plain surface.
"Of all the infernal holes to be in," he muttered. "Trapped like this, and all through my own carelessness." And then it occurred to him that he, Everett Anstruther, late a major of his Majesty's Horse Guards Blue, and now member of Parliament for Helston, would in a few hours be haled away to prison on a charge of attempted burglary. A pleasant situation, truly!
He felt ill—worse than before. His head ached, and his temples throbbed. What on earth did it mean? He had been in tight places before—once in Italy, when his life wasn't worth a moment's purchase, and then he was absolutely cool. But now——
"'YOU ARE A THIEF.'"
([p. 93.])
He started as if a pistol had been fired. A bell had rung behind him—an electric bell. It was the telephone bell, and it was still ringing. He watched it in dismay. It would rouse the whole house. Lift down the receiver, of course. He did so. The bell stopped. He put the receiver to his ear.
"Are you there?" a voice asked.