jar was much too large to go
into his pocket and not big enough to fit snugly under his arm, and as the
walk was slippery he was beset by the fear that he might fall and smash
this absurd thing that had caused so bitter an enmity between Shaver's
grandfathers. The soft snow on the lawn gave him a surer footing and he
crept after Wilton, who was carefully pursuing his way toward a house
whose gables were faintly limned against the sky. This, according to
Muriel's diagram, was the Talbot place. The Hopper greatly mistrusted
conditions he didn't understand, and he was at a loss to account for
Wilton's strange actions.

[Illustration: THE FAINT CLICK OF A LATCH MARKED THE PROWLER'S PROXIMITY
TO A HEDGE]

He lost sight of him for several minutes, then the faint click of a latch
marked the prowler's proximity to a hedge that separated the two estates.
The Hopper crept forward, found a gate through which Wilton had entered
his neighbor's property, and stole after him. Wilton had been swallowed up
by the deep shadow of the house, but The Hopper was aware, from an
occasional scraping of feet, that he was still moving forward. He crawled
over the snow until he reached a large tree whose boughs, sharply limned
against the stars, brushed the eaves of the house.

The Hopper was aroused, tremendously aroused, by the unaccountable
actions of Muriel's father. It flashed upon him that Wilton, in his deep
hatred of his rival collector, was about to set fire to Talbot's house,
and incendiarism was a crime which The Hopper, with all his moral
obliquity, greatly abhorred.

Several minutes passed, a period of anxious waiting, and then a sound
reached him which, to his keen professional sense, seemed singularly like
the forcing of a window. The Hopper knew just how much pressure is
necessary to the successful snapping back of a window catch, and Wilton
had done the trick neatly and with a minimum amount of noise. The window
thus assaulted was not, he now determined, the French window suggested by
Muriel, but one opening on a terrace which ran along the front of the
house. The Hopper heard the sash moving slowly in the frame. He reached
the steps, deposited the jar in a pile of snow, and was soon peering into
a room where Wilton's presence was advertised by the fitful flashing of
his lamp in a far corner.

"He's beat me to ut!" muttered The Hopper, realizing that Muriel's father
was indeed on burglary bent, his obvious purpose being to pu