I knew that settled it as far as he was concerned, so I nodded my head and filled a pipe. At eleven he walked across the room and switched off the light.
"If nothing happens you can take your turn in four hours from now," he said. "In the meanwhile get to sleep. I will keep the first watch."
I shut my eyes, but there was no rest in me that night. I lay listening to the silence of the old house with a dull speculation. Somewhere far down in the lower floor a great gong-like clock chimed the hours and quarters. I heard them every one, from twelve to one, from one to two. Peace had stopped smoking. He sat as silent as a cat at a mousehole.
It must have been some fifteen minutes after two that I heard the faint, faint creak of a board in the corridor outside. I sat up, every nerve strung to a tense alertness. And then there came a sound I knew well, the soft drawing touch of a hand groping in the darkness as some one felt his way along the paneled walls. It passed us and was gone. Yet Peace never moved. Could he have fallen asleep? I whispered his name.
"Hush!"
The answer came to me like a gentle sigh.
One minute, two minutes more and the room sprang into sight under the steady glow of an electric hand-lamp. The Inspector rose from his seat and slid through the door with me upon his heels. The light he carried searched the clustered shadows; but the corridor was empty, nor was there any place where a man might hide.
"You waited too long," I whispered impatiently.
"The man is no fool, Mr. Phillips. Do you imagine that he was not listening and staring like a hunted beast? A noisy board, a stumble, or a flash of light, and we should have wasted a tiring day."
"Nevertheless he has got clear away."