it might be a fake,
principally because there was no mention of Peter, who had figured
large in the other missives. But why should Peter be mentioned when he
wasn't on in this piece? The signature convinced me. Ordinarily
Blenkiron signed himself in full with a fine commercial flourish. But
when I was at the Front he had got into the habit of making a kind of
hieroglyphic of his surname to me and sticking J.S. after it in a
bracket. That was how this letter was signed, and it was sure proof it
was all right.

I spent that day and the next in wild spirits. Peter spotted what was
on, though I did not tell him for fear of making him envious. I had to
be extra kind to him, for I could see that he ached to have a hand in
the business. Indeed he asked shyly if I couldn't fit him in, and I had
to lie about it and say it was only another of my aimless
circumnavigations of the Pink Chalet.

'Try and find something where I can help,' he pleaded. 'I'm pretty
strong still, though I'm lame, and I can shoot a bit.'

I declared that he would be used in time, that Blenkiron had promised
he would be used, but for the life of me I couldn't see how.

At nine o'clock on the evening appointed I was on the lake opposite the
house, close in under the shore, making my way to the rendezvous. It
was a coal-black night, for though the air was clear the stars were
shining with little light, and the moon had not yet risen. With a
premonition that I might be long away from food, I had brought some
slabs of chocolate, and my pistol and torch were in my pocket. It was
bitter cold, but I had ceased to mind weather, and I wore my one suit
and no overcoat.

The house was like a tomb for silence. There was no crack of light
anywhere, and none of those smells of smoke and food which proclaim
habitation. It was an eerie job scrambling up the steep bank east of
the place, to where the flat of the garden started, in a darkness so
great that I had to grope my way like a blind man.

I found the little door by feeling along the edge of the building. Then
I stepped into an adjacent clump of laurels to wait on my companion. He
was there before me.

'Say,' I heard a rich Middle West voice whisper, 'are you Joseph
Zimmer? I'm not shouting any names, but I guess you are the guy I was
told to meet here.'

'Mr Donne?' I whispered back.

'The same,'he replied. 'Shake.'

I gripped a gloved and mittened hand which drew me towards the door.

CHAPTER SIXT