s likely. If he has it may
help us. If not--then I think we must do something decisive at once. But
don't hurry so! It is hard to restrain one's self, I know, but there may
be eyes on us, Mr. Potswood, and we must not seem to be persisting in
our errand."

So they went through the quiet streets for the two or three furlongs
that seemed so many miles to the good parson. Arrived at the rectory,
Mr. Potswood pushed impatiently through the gate, and was hurrying
toward the house, when he perceived a bent little old man standing among
some shrubs with his own gardener, who was digging.

"There's Mason's gardener!" the rector exclaimed, and went to meet him.

The old man touched his hat, looked sharply towards Hewitt, who was
waiting near the rectory door, and then disappeared round a corner of
the house, the rector following. In a few seconds Mr. Potswood
reappeared, with a slip of paper in his hand. "Here," he said, "see
this! The old man was told to give it to nobody but me, and in nobody
else's presence. He's been waiting since one o'clock."

Scrawled on the paper, in trembling and straggling letters, were these
words:--

/#
"You must not bring Mr. Martin Hewitt to my house this afternoon. I
am watched. It is hopeless. Do not desert me. Bring him to-night
after dark at eight. I shall want his best skill, and you shall
know all. After dark. Come to the back gate in the lane, which will
be ajar, and through the conservatory at the side, where my niece
will be waiting at eight, after dark. Burn this and do not let it
out of your sight first. Send a line by this man to say you will do
as I ask, but do not say what it is, for fear of accidents. Send at
once. Do come at eight, with Mr. Hewitt."
#/

"We must do as he says," remarked Hewitt. "We know nothing of this
matter, and we must be guided till we do. Just write an unsigned
note--'All shall be as you request,' or words to that effect, and be
sure the man gives it to him. Let him out behind through the churchyard,
if possible, and tell him not to go straight from one house to the
other. Is he an intelligent man?"

"Yes--uncommonly shrewd, I believe. He says he can't have been followed.
He knows several gardeners hereabout, and he seems to have called on
each of them on his way--in at the front of the garden and out at the
back each time, after a few minutes' conversation. Gipps is rather a
cunning old fellow."

"Ah," s