nd about to slip off my shoes before
stepping across the gravel to the conservatory door, when a most
singular sound arrested me in the act. It was a muffled gasping
somewhere overhead. I stood like stone; and my listening attitude must
have been visible against the milky sheen of the lawn, for a labored
voice hailed me sternly from a window.

"Who on earth are you?" it wheezed.

"A detective officer," I replied, "sent down by the Burglary Insurance
Company."

Not a moment had I paused for my precious fable. It had all been
prepared for me by Raffles, in case of need. I was merely repeating a
lesson in which I had been closely schooled. But at the window there
was pause enough, filled only by the uncanny wheezing of the man I
could not see.

"I don't see why they should have sent you down," he said at length.
"We are being quite well looked after by the local police; they're
giving us a special call every hour."

"I know that, Mr. Medlicott," I rejoined on my own account. "I met one
of them at the corner just now, and we passed the time of night."

My heart was knocking me to bits. I had started for myself at last.

"Did you get my name from him?" pursued my questioner, in a suspicious
wheeze.

"No; they gave me that before I started," I replied. "But I'm sorry
you saw me, sir; it's a mere matter of routine, and not intended to
annoy anybody. I propose to keep a watch on the place all night, but I
own it wasn't necessary to trespass as I've done. I'll take myself
off the actual premises, if you prefer it."

This again was all my own; and it met with a success that might have
given me confidence.

"Not a bit of it," replied young Medlicott, with a grim geniality.
"I've just woke up with the devil of an attack of asthma, and may have
to sit up in my chair till morning. You'd better come up and see me
through, and kill two birds while you're about it. Stay where you are,
and I'll come down and let you in."

Here was a dilemma which Raffles himself had not foreseen! Outside, in
the dark, my audacious part was not hard to play; but to carry the
improvisation in-doors was to double at once the difficulty and the
risk. It was true that I had purposely come down in a true detective's
overcoat and bowler; but my personal appearance was hardly of the
detective type. On the other hand as the _soi-disant_ guardian of the
gifts one might only excite suspicion by refusing to enter the house
where they were. Nor could I