from home in years, except on business. Yet now I must have
a free evening, possibly an entire night.

In planning for this, I forgot my nervousness for a time. I decided
finally to tell my wife that an out-of-town client wished to talk
business with me, and that day, at luncheon--I go home to luncheon--I
mentioned that such a client was in town.

"It is possible," I said, as easily as I could, "that we may not get
through this afternoon. If things should run over into the evening, I'll
telephone."

She took it calmly enough, but later on, as I was taking an electric
flash from the drawer of the hall table and putting it in my overcoat
pocket, she came on me, and I thought she looked surprised.

During the afternoon I was beset with doubts and uneasiness. Suppose
she called up my office and found that the client I had named was not in
town? It is undoubtedly true that a tangled web we weave when first we
practise to deceive, for on my return to the office I was at once quite
certain that Mrs. Johnson would telephone and make the inquiry.

After some debate I called my secretary and told her to say, if such
a message came in, that Mr. Forbes was in town and that I had an
appointment with him. As a matter of fact, no such inquiry came in, but
as Miss Joyce, my secretary, knew that Mr. Forbes was in Europe, I was
conscious for some months afterwards that Miss Joyce's eyes occasionally
rested on me in a speculative and suspicious manner.

Other things also increased my uneasiness as the day wore on. There was,
for instance, the matter of the back door to the Wells house. Nothing
was more unlikely than that the key would still be hanging there. I
must, therefore, get a key.

At three o'clock I sent the office-boy out for a back-door key. He
looked so surprised that I explained that we had lost our key, and that
I required an assortment of keys of all sizes.

"What sort of key?" he demanded, eyeing me, with his feet apart.

"Just an ordinary key," I said. "Not a Yale key. Nothing fancy. Just
a plain back-door key." At something after four my wife called up, in
great excitement. A boy and a man had been to the house and had fitted
an extra key to the back door, which had two excellent ones already. She
was quite hysterical, and had sent for the police, but the officer had
arrived after they had gone.

"They are burglars, of course!" she said. "Burglars often have boys with
them, to go through the pantry windows. I'