Only one chance was left me--the window.

I stole to it on tiptoe.
My bedroom was on the first floor, above an _entresol,_ and looked into a back street, which you have sketched in your view.

I raised my hand to open the window, knowing that on that action hung, by the merest hair-breadth, my chance of safety.

They keep vigilant watch in a House of Murder.

If any part of the frame cracked, if the hinge creaked, I was a lost man! It must have occupied me at least five minutes, reckoning by time--five _hours,_ reckoning by suspense--to open that window.