expectation, of learning
something that might be useful.

"This is the last one. It is the largest bedroom," said their guide.
Only two of the upper rooms were fully furnished and Mr. Carlyle at
once saw, as Carrados knew without seeing, that this was the one which
the Creakes occupied.

"A very pleasant outlook," declared Mr. Carlyle.

"Oh, I suppose so," admitted the lady vaguely. The room, in fact,
looked over the leafy garden and the road beyond. It had a French
window opening on to a small balcony, and to this, under the strange
influence that always attracted him to light, Carrados walked.

"I expect that there is a certain amount of repair needed?" he said,
after standing there a moment.

"I am afraid there would be," she confessed.

"I ask because there is a sheet of metal on the floor here," he
continued. "Now that, in an old house, spells dry rot to the wary
observer."

"My husband said that the rain, which comes in a little under the
window, was rotting the boards there," she replied. "He put that down
recently. I had not noticed anything myself."

It was the first time she had mentioned her husband; Mr. Carlyle
pricked up his ears.

"Ah, that is a less serious matter," said Carrados. "May I step out on
to the balcony?"

"Oh yes, if you like to." Then, as he appeared to be fumbling at the
catch, "Let me open it for you."

But the window was already open, and Carrados, facing the various
points of the compass, took in the bearings.

"A sunny, sheltered corner," he remarked. "An ideal spot for a
deck-chair and a book."

She shrugged her shoulders half contemptuously.

"I dare say," she replied, "but I never use it."

"Sometimes, surely," he persisted mildly. "It would be my favourite
retreat. But then--"

"I was going to say that I had never even been out on it, but that
would not be quite true. It has two uses for me, both equally
romantic; I occasionally shake a duster from it, and when my husband
returns late without his latchkey he wakes me up and I come out here
and drop him mine."

Further revelation of Mr. Creake's nocturnal habits was cut off,
greatly to Mr. Carlyle's annoyance, by a cough of unmistakable
significance from the foot of the stairs. They had heard a trade cart
drive up to the gate, a knock at the door, and the heavy-footed woman
tramp along the hall.

"Excuse me a minute, please," said Mrs. Creake.

"Louis," said Carrados, in a sharp whisper, the moment they wer