ntense alarm in
marched the two Frenchmen who had already inspired me with so much
distrust. Their friends were behind them; and I could only conclude that
my movements had somehow been observed by them, and that now I was
virtually caught, like a rat in a trap.

I was the more startled, too, when my foreign acquaintance (about whom I
really knew very little) abruptly quitted me to accost the new comers.
But this gave me breathing time. The door was free, and so, leaving the
refreshment I had ordered untouched, I bolted out of the house in much
the same way as a thief might have done, and ran, as if for my life,
right down the Alexandra Road until I reached Wareham's office. And there
I seized the knocker in a frenzy, and made such a racket as might have
awakened the dead. The door suddenly opened, and I fell into the arms of
Everson, Wareham's managing clerk.

'Great Scott!' said he. 'What is the matter? You've nearly brought the
house down!'

'Shut the door!' I replied. 'Shut the door!'

'But what has happened to you?'

I had seated myself on the stairs, and a full minute went by before I
could begin my story. Then I told Everson all that had befallen me. Some
Frenchmen were on Zola's track; they must be the very same men who had
shadowed Wareham and myself from the Salisbury Hotel some nights
previously; and now they were in Wimbledon, having heard, no doubt, that
M. Zola had been seen there. Wareham must be warned of it. Every
precaution must be taken; we must remove our charge from Oatlands, and so
forth.

Everson puffed away at his pipe and listened meditatively. At last he
remarked, 'Well, it is a curious business if what you say is true. What
were these Frenchmen like?'

Forthwith I began to describe them as accurately as I could. The first
likeness I sketched must have been a faithful one, for Everson started,
and exclaimed, 'And the other. Was he not so-and-so and so-and-so?'

'Yes, he was. But how do you know that?' I rejoined, with considerable
surprise.

'Why, because I know who the men are! Although you saw them with Mr.
Savage of the Raynes Park Hotel, it doesn't follow that they are staying
at Raynes Park. As a matter of fact they live here in this very road.
They have been here I daresay, eight or nine months now. And as for being
detectives, my dear sir, they are musicians!'

'You don't mean it!'

I collapsed again. To think that out of a mere chain of chance
coincidences I should have f