r for his task. Turning up his collar
and pulling down his hat, Berrington retraced his steps.

He was enabled to take pretty good stock of the house Richford had
entered, and without exciting suspicion, because there were trees on the
opposite side of the road and seats beneath them. It was a fairly open
part of London, with detached houses on the one side looking on to a
kind of park. They were expensive houses, Berrington decided, houses
that could not have been less than two hundred and fifty a year. They
looked prosperous with their marble steps and conservatories on the
right side of the wide doorways; there were good gardens behind and no
basements. Berrington could see, too, by the hanging opals in the upper
windows that these houses had electric lights.

"This is unusual, very unusual indeed," Berrington muttered to himself,
as he sat as if tired on one of the seats under the trees. "The gentry
who cultivate the doctrine that has for its cult a piece of salt in the
shape of a bullet, don't as a rule favour desirable family mansions like
these. Still, fortune might have favoured one of them. No. 100, Audley
Place. And No. 100 is the recognized number of the clan. By the way,
where am I?"

A passing policeman was in a position to answer the question. Audley
Place was somewhat at the back of Wandsworth Common, so that it was
really a good way out of town. The policeman was friendly, mainly owing
to the fact that he was an old soldier, and that he recognized
Berrington as an officer immediately. He was full of information, too.

"Mostly rich City gents live in Audley Place, sir," he said. "There is
one colonel, too--Colonel Foley of the East Shropshire Regiment."

"An old college chum and messmate of mine," Berrington said. "I followed
Colonel Foley in the command of that very regiment. What house does he
live in?"

"That's No. 14, sir," the delighted officer grinned. "Excuse the
liberty, sir, but you must be Colonel Berrington, sir. I was with you
all through the first Egyptian campaign."

Berrington blessed his own good fortune. Here was the very thing that he
wanted.

"We'll fight our battles over again some other day," he said. "I am
pretty sure that I shall see a great deal more of you--by the way, what
is your name? Macklin. Thank you. Now tell me something as to who lives
yonder at No. 100. I am not asking out of idle curiosity."

"I can't tell you the gentleman's name, sir," Macklin replied. "But