The only question was--had he been seen or heard? He thought not; but
his heart began to beat furiously as the footsteps stopped outside the
cupboard door and unseen fingers rattled the handle.
Twice Mr Kay tried the handle, but, finding the cupboard locked,
passed on into the dining-room. The light of the candle ceased to
shine under the door, and Fenn was once more in inky darkness.
He listened intently. A minute later he had made his second mistake.
Instead of waiting, as he should have done, until Mr Kay had retired
for good, he unlocked the door directly he had passed, and when a
muffled crash told him that the house-master was in the dining-room
among the chairs, out he came and fled softly upstairs towards his
bedroom. He thought that Mr Kay might possibly take it into his head
to go round the dormitories to make certain that all the members of
his house were in. In which case all would be discovered.
When he reached his room he began to fling off his clothes with
feverish haste. Once in bed all would be well.
He had got out of his boots, his coat, and his waistcoat, and was
beginning to feel that electric sensation of triumph which only conies
to the man who _just_ pulls through, when he heard Mr Kay coming
down the corridor towards his room. The burglar-hunter, returning from
the dining-room in the full belief that the miscreant had escaped
through the open window, had had all his ardour for the chase
redoubled by the sight of the cupboard door, which Fenn in his hurry
had not remembered to close.
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