At this moment the blackness was relieved as if by the striking of a match.  The man below had brought an electric torch into play, and now Jimmy could see clearly.  He had been right in his surmise.  It was Lord Wisbeach.  He was kneeling in front of the safe.  What he was doing to the safe, Jimmy could not see, for the man’s body was in the way; but the electric torch shone on his face, lighting up grim, serious features quite unlike the amiable and slightly vacant mask which his lordship was wont to present to the world.  As Jimmy looked, something happened in the pool of light beyond his vision.  Gentleman Jack gave a muttered exclamation of satisfaction, and then Jimmy saw that the door of the safe had swung open.  The air was full of a penetrating smell of scorched metal.  Jimmy was not an expert in these matters, but he had read from time to time of modern burglars and their methods, and he gathered that an oxy-acetylene blow-pipe, with its flame that cuts steel as a knife cuts cheese, had been at work.

Lord Wisbeach flashed the torch into the open safe, plunged his hand in, and drew it out again, holding something.  Handling this in a cautious and gingerly manner, he placed it carefully in his breast pocket.  Then he straightened himself.  He switched off the torch, and moved to the window, leaving the rest of his implements by the open safe.  He unfastened the shutter, then raised the catch of the window.  At this point it seemed to Jimmy that the time had come to interfere.

“Tut, tut!” he said in a tone of mild reproof.

The effect of the rebuke on Lord Wisbeach was remarkable.  He jumped convulsively away from the window, then, revolving on his own axis, flashed the torch into every corner of the room.

“Who’s that?” he gasped.

“Conscience!” said Jimmy.

Lord Wisbeach had overlooked the gallery in his researches.  He now turned his torch upwards.  The light flooded the gallery on the opposite side of the room from where Jimmy stood.  There was a pistol in Gentleman Jack’s hand now.  It followed the torch uncertainly.

Jimmy, lying flat on the gallery floor, spoke again.

“Throw that gun away, and the torch, too,” he said.  “I’ve got you covered!”

The torch flashed above his head, but the raised edge of the gallery rail protected him.

“I’ll give you five seconds.  If you haven’t dropped that gun by then, I shall shoot!”

As he began to count, Jimmy heartily regretted that he had allowed his appreciation of the dramatic to lead him into this situation.  It would have been so simple to have roused the house in a prosaic way and avoided this delicate position.  Suppose his bluff did not succeed.  Suppose the other still clung to his pistol at the end of the five seconds.  He wished that he had made it ten instead.  Gentleman Jack was an enterprising person, as his previous acts had showed.  He might very well decide to take a chance.  He might even refuse to believe that Jimmy was armed.  He had only Jimmy’s word for it.  Perhaps he might be as deficient in simple faith as he had proved to be in Norman blood!  Jimmy lingered lovingly over his count.