angers
without authority, and to give me immediate information as to any
suspicious-looking characters whom they might see loitering about.

These precautions, I thought, would be quite sufficient to prevent any
attack being made on Mr. Fortescue in the daytime. It was less easy to
guard against a surprise during the night, for the park-palings were not
so high as to be unclimbable; and the idea of a night-watchman was
suggested only to be dismissed, for the very sufficient reason that when
he was most wanted he would almost certainly be asleep. I had no fear of
Griscelli breaking in at the front door; but the house was not
burglar-proof, and, as it happened, the weak point in our defence was one
of the windows of Mr. Fortescue's bedroom. It looked into the orchard,
and, by climbing a tree which grew hard by, an active man could easily
reach it, even without a ladder. The danger was all the greater, as, when
the weather was mild, Mr. Fortescue always slept with the window open. I
proposed iron bars, to which he objected that iron bars would make his
room look like a prison. And then I had a happy thought.

"Let us fix a strong brass rod right across the window-frame," I said, "in
such a way that nobody can get in without laying hold of it, and by
connecting it with a strong dynamo-battery inside, make sure that the man
who does lay hold of it will not be able to let go."

The idea pleased Mr. Fortescue, and he told me to carry it out, which I
did promptly and effectively, taking care to make the battery so powerful
that, if Mr. Griscelli should try to effect an entrance by the window, he
would be disagreeably surprised. The circuit was, of course, broken by
dividing the rod in two parts and interposing a non-conductor between
them.

To prevent any of the maids being "shocked," I told Ramon (who acted as
his master's body servant) to connect the battery every night and
disconnect it every morning. From time to time, moreover, I overhauled the
apparatus to see that it was in good working order, and kept up its
strength by occasionally recharging the cells.

Once, when I was doing this, Mr. Fortescue said, laughingly: "I don't
think it is any use, Bacon; Griscelli won't come in that way. If, as some
people say, it is the unexpected that happens, it is the expected that
does not happen."

But in this instance both happened--the expected and the unexpected.

As I mentioned at the outset of my story, the habits of the