all this thing about? How came you in
this place, and for what reason?"

"Come in by the garden door, sir, 'arf an hour or so back. Told off by
my gov'ner to lie low and wait for somebody who might come a-sneakin'
about, meanin' to break into the house, I suppose, and with his eye on
the plate."

"I see! Well, better take my advice, my lad, and unlock those handcuffs,
and set this gentleman at liberty before they do come, or you're likely
to have a sharp talking to from Superintendent Narkom. By the way, what
induced you to snap them on him in the first place? You surely do not
expect us to believe that a gentleman of Sir Philip Clavering's standing
was acting suspiciously? What was he doing, if you please, that you
should have gone to such a length?"

"Sneakin' along and feelin' about the bushes like he was huntin' for
somethin'," said Dollops as he unlocked the handcuffs and put them in
his pocket.

"He is quite right in that, Mr. Barch. I _was_ looking for something,"
said Sir Philip, wiping his wrists with his handkerchief, as though to
remove something of the infection with which he felt he had come into
contact. "As a matter of fact, I was looking for my way. I had come into
the grounds from a point where I had never before entered them, and I
was endeavouring to find a path which would lead me to the house. As it
was as black as a pocket, nothing was left me but _to_ feel my way. I
got hopelessly muddled up, and was just telling myself that I would have
done better to make my call in orthodox fashion and by the regular
entrance, when, the first thing I knew, this enterprising young man
jumped out of the dark and pounced on me like a monkey. You see, it was
this way, Raynor," glancing up at the General, who was looking at him
fixedly, and with a curious ridge between his brows, as if, for some
reason, he only half believed him, though for years they had been tried
and trusted friends; "I was in such a dickens of a hurry to see you that
when I came off the Common and found that wall door open----"

"Open? What wall door open?" interposed the General agitatedly.

"The one at the angle of the wall, where your boundary flanks the waste
land between here and the right-of-way across the fields."

"And you found that door open? _Open?_ Why, man alive, it has been
locked and screwed up for years."

"Has it, indeed? Well, it was open to-night, then. As I was saying, when
I found that open, I thought that, possibl