t beach I saw nothing but the
sea-gulls.

It took him more than an hour to do the job, and when I saw him coming
towards me, conning a bit of paper, I can tell you my heart was in my
mouth. Everything depended, you see, on my guess proving right.

He read aloud the number of steps in the different stairs.
'Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-nine, forty-two, forty-seven,' and
'twenty-one' where the cliffs grew lower. I almost got up and shouted.

We hurried back to the town and sent a wire to MacGillivray. I wanted
half a dozen men, and I directed them to divide themselves among
different specified hotels. Then Scaife set out to prospect the house
at the head of the thirty-nine steps.

He came back with news that both puzzled and reassured me. The house
was called Trafalgar Lodge, and belonged to an old gentleman called
Appleton--a retired stockbroker, the house-agent said. Mr Appleton was
there a good deal in the summer time, and was in residence now--had
been for the better part of a week. Scaife could pick up very little
information about him, except that he was a decent old fellow, who paid
his bills regularly, and was always good for a fiver for a local
charity. Then Scaife seemed to have penetrated to the back door of the
house, pretending he was an agent for sewing-machines. Only three
servants were kept, a cook, a parlour-maid, and a housemaid, and they
were just the sort that you would find in a respectable middle-class
household. The cook was not the gossiping kind, and had pretty soon
shut the door in his face, but Scaife said he was positive she knew
nothing. Next door there was a new house building which would give
good cover for observation, and the villa on the other side was to let,
and its garden was rough and shrubby.

I borrowed Scaife's telescope, and before lunch went for a walk along
the Ruff. I kept well behind the rows of villas, and found a good
observation point on the edge of the golf-course. There I had a view
of the line of turf along the cliff top, with seats placed at
intervals, and the little square plots, railed in and planted with
bushes, whence the staircases descended to the beach. I saw Trafalgar
Lodge very plainly, a red-brick villa with a veranda, a tennis lawn
behind, and in front the ordinary seaside flower-garden full of
marguerites and scraggy geraniums. There was a flagstaff from which an
enormous Union Jack hung limply in the still air.

Presently I observe