e mystery of these people far
deeper than I am. I only want to find the solution."

"And you think you'll find it in their house?"

"I know I should," said Uvo with quiet confidence. "But I don't say
it'll be a pleasant find. I shouldn't ask you to come in with me, but
merely to accept some responsibility afterwards--to-night, if we're
spotted. It will probably involve more kudos in the end. But I don't
want to let you in for more than you can stand meanwhile, Gillon."

That was enough for me. I myself led the way back to the windows,
angrily enough until he took my arm, and then suddenly more at one with
him than I had ever been before. I had seen his set lips in the
moonlight, and felt the uncontrollable tremor of the hand upon my
sleeve.

It so happened that it was not necessary to break in after all. I had
generally some keys about me and the variety of locks on our back doors
was not inexhaustible. It was the scullery door in this case that a
happy chance thus enabled me to open. But I was now more determined than
Delavoye himself, and would have stuck at no burglarious excess to test
his prescience, to say nothing of a secret foreboding which had been
forming in my own mind.

To one who went from house to house on the Estate as I did, and knew by
heart the five or six plans on which builder and architect had rung the
changes, darkness should have been no hindrance to the unwarrantable
exploration I was about to conduct. I knew the way through these
kitchens, and found it here without a false or noisy step. But in the
hall I had to contend with the furniture which makes one interior as
different from another as the houses themselves may be alike. The
Abercromby Royles had as much furniture as the Delavoyes, only of a
different type. It was not massive and unsuitable, but only too dainty
and multifarious, no doubt in accordance with the poor wife's taste. I
retained an impression of artful simplicity--an enamelled drain-pipe for
the umbrellas--painted tambourines and counterfeit milk-stools--which
rather charmed me in those days. But I had certainly forgotten a tall
flower-stand outside the kitchen door, and over it went crashing as I
set foot in the tessellated hall. I doubt if either of us drew breath
for some seconds after the last bit of broken plant-pot lay still upon
the tiles. Then I rubbed a match on my trousers, but it did not strike.
Uvo had me by the hand before I could do it again.

"Do you want t