"You startled me, you brute, with your infernal lantern, and now I've half a mind to startle you."
Mr. Paxton made his half-mind a whole one. He brought his revolver to the level of his elbow; he pointed it at the window, and he fired. The figure on the ladder disappeared with the rapidity of a jack-in-the-box. Whether the man had fallen or not, there was for the moment no evidence to show. Mr. Paxton dragged the dressing-table away, threw up the window, and looked out. The mist came streaming in. In the distance could be heard the stampede of feet. Plainly two or three persons were making off as fast as their heels would carry them. An imperious knocking came at the bedroom door.
"Anything the matter in there?"
Mr. Paxton threw the door wide open. A porter was standing in the lighted corridor.
"A good deal's the matter. Burglary's the matter."
"Burglary?"
"Yes, burglary. I caught a man in the very act of opening my window, so I had a pop at him. He appears to have got off; but his ladder he has left behind."
Other people came into the room, among them the manager. An examination of the premises was made from without. The man had escaped; but the precipitancy of his descent was evidenced by the fact that his lantern, falling from his grasp, had been shattered to fragments on the ground.
The fragments he had not stayed to gather. Still less had he and his associates stood on the order of their going sufficiently long to enable them to remove the ladder.