his part.

Thus I was first out of a crowded theatre train at Esher next night,
and first down the stairs into the open air. The night was close and
cloudy; and the road to Hampton Court, even now that the suburban
builder has marked much of it for his own, is one of the darkest I
know. The first mile is still a narrow avenue, a mere tunnel of leaves
at mid-summer; but at that time there was not a lighted pane or cranny
by the way. Naturally, it was in this blind reach that I fancied I was
being followed. I stopped in my stride; so did the steps I made sure I
had heard not far behind; and when I went on, they followed suit. I
dried my forehead as I walked, but soon brought myself to repeat the
experiment when an exact repetition of the result went to convince me
that it had been my own echo all the time. And since I lost it on
getting quit of the avenue, and coming out upon the straight and open
road, I was not long in recovering from my scare. But now I could see
my way, and found the rest of it without mishap, though not without
another semblance of adventure. Over the bridge across the Mole, when
about to turn to the left, I marched straight upon a policeman in
rubber soles. I had to call him "officer" as I passed, and to pass my
turning by a couple of hundred yards, before venturing back another
way.

At last I had crept through a garden gate, and round by black windows
to a black lawn drenched with dew. It had been a heating walk, and I
was glad to blunder on a garden seat, most considerately placed under
a cedar which added its own darkness to that of the night. Here I
rested a few minutes, putting up my feet to keep them dry, untying my
shoes to save time, and generally facing the task before me with a
coolness which I strove to make worthy of my absent chief. But mine
was a self-conscious quality, as far removed from the original as any
other deliberate imitation of genius. I actually struck a match on my
trousers, and lit one of the shorter Sullivans. Raffles himself would
not have done such a thing at such a moment. But I wished to tell him
that I had done it; and in truth I was not more than pleasurably
afraid; I had rather that impersonal curiosity as to the issue which
has been the saving of me in still more precarious situations. I even
grew impatient for the fray, and could not after all sit still as long
as I had intended. So it happened that I was finishing my cigarette on
the edge of the wet lawn, a