iness takes me to the stable," thought he. "What is the
coachman's name? I ought to remember it. Ah--Zadok! Zadok Brown. There's
a combination for you!"

He had reached this point in his soliloquy (a bad habit of his, for it
sometimes took audible expression) when he ran against another policeman
set to guard the side door. A moment's parley, and he left this man
behind; but not before he had noted this door and the wide and hospitable
verandah which separated it from the driveway.

"I am willing to go all odds that I shall find that verandah the most
interesting part of the house," he remarked, in quiet conviction, to
himself, as he noted its nearness to the stable and the ease with which
one could step from it into a vehicle passing down the driveway.

It had another point of interest, or, rather the wing had to which it was
attached. As his eye travelled back across this wing, in his lively walk
towards the stable, he caught a passing glimpse of a nurse's face and
figure in one of its upper windows. This located the sick chamber, and
unconsciously he hushed his step and moved with the greatest caution,
though he knew that this sickness was not one of the nerves, and that the
loudest sound would fail to reach ears lapsed in a blessed, if alarming,
unconsciousness.

Once around the corner, he resumed a more natural pace, and perceiving
that the stable-door was closed but that a window well up the garden side
was open, he cast a look towards the kitchen windows at his back, and,
encountering no watchful eye, stepped up to the former one and peered in.

A man sat with his back to him, polishing a bit of harness. This was
probably Zadok, the coachman. As his interest was less with him than with
the stalls beyond, he let his eye travel on in their direction, when he
suddenly experienced a momentary confusion by observing the head and
shoulders of Hexford leaning towards him from an opposite window--in much
the same fashion, and certainly with exactly the same intent, as himself.
As their glances crossed, both flushed and drew back, only to return
again, each to his several peep-hole. Neither meant to lose the advantage
of the moment. Both had heard of the grey horse and wished to identify
it; Hexford for his own satisfaction, Sweetwater as the first link of the
chain leading him into the mysterious course mapped out for him by fate.
That each was more or less under the surveillance of the other did not
trouble either.