Gripping the doorknob in his left hand this time, Richie steeled himself for a few moments, then swung the door inward.   He had half expected the door to be locked.   But even in a security conscious district like Glen Iris, there was no reason to lock inner doors.   And the sitting room had not been locked.   So, as he had expected, the door swung wide easily.   Too easily, and for a nervous second, he feared he would lose control of the door to hear it crash into the inside wall.

Just in time he managed to control his nerves, and the door, and stepped silently inside.   And found himself standing face to face with a Doberman Pinscher.

His first instinct was to race back out into the corridor, trying to pull the door closed in time to keep the guard dog at bay.   He eased back into the hallway, and started to slowly ease the door shut.

He had shut the door firmly, when he realised that the dog had made no move toward him.   “It must have seen me!” he realised.   “And even if it didn’t, Dobermans have a sense of smell twenty thousand times as strong as ours.   So it can’t have failed to notice me!”

Logic told him to head back toward the ground floor and exit the manor through the French windows.   But determined not to be so easily spooked, Richie forced himself to pull open the door and step back into the darkened room.

Trying his best to control his racing heart and panting breath, Richie stepped up to the tallish, black dog and shone the penlight directly into its eyes.   Expecting the dog to whine and flinch (or attack!), Richie kept within a quick step of the hallway door.   However, the Doberman neither whined, flinched nor attacked.   So, hesitantly, Richie reached out one hand to tap the beast gently upon the muzzle.

The cold, enamel muzzle.

Richie sighed audibly as he realised that it was only a plaster dog.   Then he looked round nervously again, hoping no one in an adjoining room had heard the loud outrush of breath.