nce began a system of espionage. He studied the faces
of the new tenants, and was particularly careful to note when they went
out and when they came in and with whom they associated. He knew
precisely when they turned the lights out at night and when they opened
the windows in the morning. He could tell exactly how many rugs they
had, how much coal they burned, how much meat they ate, how many letters
they received, what walks they preferred, what people they spoke to, and
who recognised them. As if this were not enough, he went down to the
bookstore, bought the complete works of Dr. Benda, and read these heavy
scientific treatises in the sweat of his brow. He was annoyed at the
thought that they had not been critically reviewed. He would have
embraced any one who would have told him that they were all perfectly
worthless compilations.

One evening, along towards spring, he chanced to go into the backyard to
feed Caesar. He looked up, and saw Marguerite standing on the balcony.
She did not see him, for she was also looking up. On the balcony of the
second floor, across the court from her, stood Friedrich Benda,
responding to some mute signals Marguerite was giving him. Finally they
both stopped and merely looked at each other, until Marguerite caught
sight of her brother, when she quickly disappeared behind the glass door
draped with green curtains.

"Aha," thought Carovius, "there's something up." The scene warmed his
very blood.

From that day on he avoided the court. He sat instead for hours at a
time in a room from which he could look out through a crack and see
everything that was taking place at the windows and on the balconies. He
discovered that signals were being sent from the first floor up to the
second by changing the position of a flower pot on the railing of the
balcony, and that these signals were answered by having a yellow cloth
flutter on now a vertical, now a horizontal pole.

At times Marguerite would come out quite timidly, and look up; at times
Benda appeared, and stood for a while at the window completely
absorbed, as it seemed, in melancholy thoughts. Herr Carovius caught
them together but on one single occasion. He opened the window as
quickly as he could, and placed his ear so that he could hear what was
being said, but it so happened that over in the adjoining yard some one
was just then nailing a box together. As a result of the noise it was
impossible for him to understand their remarks.