You are going upstairs where the sleepers and valuables are. You button your coat and pull your hat down over your eyes to hide your face from the sleeper should he wake up on you and switch on a light. It takes you fifteen minutes to get up the stairs; they creak frightfully and you must find solid places to put your weight. You know your business, so you keep as close to the banister as possible, where the step boards are nailed down tight and can’t shift and creak. You know the creaking won’t wake sleeping people, but you don’t know yet whether they are asleep. If they should be lying in bed awake, they would know what the creaking meant and you might get shot.

Now you are at a bedroom door, it’s latched but not locked. You take hold of the doorknob in a certain way and turn it slowly till it won’t turn any farther. The hall you are in is dark and dead silent. You push the door open an inch and you can hear the gentle, regular up-and-down breathing of the healthy sleeper. You wait a long time, maybe five minutes, with your hand on the doorknob, listening intently. Yes, there are two sleepers in the room.