The house switched its attention to the man.

He had concluded his search of the dining room and was now searching a guest room. He found the gun the house's master had hidden there.

The man waved the gun at the motionless walls. "See what I found, house! You try any more funny stuff and I'll kill you!"

"You do not frighten me," the house replied via one of its many hidden microphones. To verify the statement, it turned on the heating units full blast.

A few minutes later, the man stopped his search of a closet when he noticed that sweat was rolling off his body as if he were standing at the gates of hell itself.

He left the closet and shouted at an open door, "Stop it! Do you hear, stop it!" He shook his head from side to side, violently, as if to impress the house with the necessity of obeying.

"You can't stop me with the gun," the house informed him. "There are one hundred and two air-conditioning vents in the house. If you took time to find and destroy all of them, you could never leave here before my masters return."

The man's jaw sagged, and with an equal sag of his shoulders he returned to his search of the closet.

The house deducted, They are burglars, only burglars. They want to escape before my masters return because they would have to kill them and they are not murderers.

The man grunted with satisfaction when he stopped sweating. And grunted with anger when, a few minutes later, the room became so cold he was shivering and his breath was like smoke.

The house established automatic circuits to give the room a continuous fluctuation of temperature from extreme heat to extreme coldness every two minutes and turned its attention to the woman.

Still attired only in shoes and wristwatch, the woman was now searching the bathroom.

Quite by accident, she touched a certain spot of the medicine cabinet and stared with fascination as the cabinet swung completely around to display its back which was—the safe. It was unlocked.

She grabbed the large metal box inside, opened it, and glanced at the few glittering jewels and small bundle of bills.

"It's here!" she cried. She whirled and took a step 

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