dinary were blank and
shuttered. Several times I cut across the grounds, when the moon was
dark. On one such occasion a great car with no lights swept up the
drive, and I heard low voices at the door. Another time a man ran
hastily past me, and entered the house by a little door on the eastern
side, which I had not before noticed ... Slowly the conviction began to
grow on me that we were not wrong in marking down this place, that
things went on within it which it deeply concerned us to discover. But
I was puzzled to think of a way. I might butt inside, but for all I
knew it would be upsetting Blenkiron's plans, for he had given me no
instructions about housebreaking. All this unsettled me worse than
ever. I began to lie awake planning some means of entrance ... I would
be a peasant from the next valley who had twisted his ankle ... I would
go seeking an imaginary cousin among the servants ... I would start a
fire in the place and have the doors flung open to zealous neighbours...

And then suddenly I got instructions in a letter from Blenkiron.

It came inside a parcel of warm socks that arrived from my kind aunt.
But the letter for me was not from her. It was in Blenkiron's large
sprawling hand and the style of it was all his own. He told me that he
had about finished his job. He had got his line on Chelius, who was the
bird he expected, and that bird would soon wing its way southward
across the mountains for the reason I knew of.

'We've got an almighty move on,' he wrote, 'and please God you're going
to hustle some in the next week. It's going better than I ever hoped.'
But something was still to be done. He had struck a countryman, one
Clarence Donne, a journalist of Kansas City, whom he had taken into the
business. Him he described as a 'crackerjack' and commended to my
esteem. He was coming to St Anton, for there was a game afoot at the
Pink Chalet, which he would give me news of. I was to meet him next
evening at nine-fifteen at the little door in the east end of the
house. 'For the love of Mike, Dick,' he concluded, 'be on time and do
everything Clarence tells you as if he was me. It's a mighty complex
affair, but you and he have sand enough to pull through. Don't worry
about your little cousin. She's safe and out of the job now.'

My first feeling was one of immense relief, especially at the last
words. I read the letter a dozen times to make sure I had its meaning.
A flash of suspicion crossed my mind that