Cheyne looked up sharply.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Why, they must have been worried to death to know what had happened to you. Your dead body wasn’t found—they’d soon have heard of it if it had been. And no information was given to the police about the affair—they’d soon have heard of that too. And you haven’t struck at them. Probably they’ve made inquiries at Dartmouth and found you haven’t gone home. They’ll absolutely be scared into fits to know whether you’re alive or dead, or what blow may not be being built up against them. Though they richly deserve it, I don’t envy them their position.”
This was a new idea to Cheyne.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he returned, then he laughed. “Yes, it didn’t work out quite as they wanted, did it? But I expect they know all about me. Don’t you think that under the circumstances they would have gone round making discreet inquiries at the hospitals?”
“Well, that is at least something to be done. First job: find out if possible if anyone asked about you at the Albert Edward. If that fails, same question elsewhere.”
“Right: that’s an idea. But it is not enough.” Cheyne shook his head to give emphasis to his remark. “We must do something more. And the only thing I can think of is to get into that house again and see what I can find. I’ll risk the police.”
Miss Merrill was evidently thrilled, but not converted.
“I shouldn’t be in too great a hurry,” she counseled. “How would it do if we went out there first and had a look around?”
“I don’t see that we should gain much by looking at the outside of the house.”
“You never know. Let’s go as soon as it gets dark tonight. If we see nothing no harm is done.”
Cheyne was not averse to the idea of an excursion in the company of his new friend, and he readily agreed, provided Miss Merrill gave her word not to run into any danger.
“I think you should put on a hat with a low brim and wear something with a high collar,” he suggested. “I’ll do the same, and in the dark we’re not likely to be noticed even if any of the gang are about.”
Miss Merrill pointed out that as she was unknown to the gang, it did not matter if her features were seen, but Cheyne was insistent.
“You don’t know,” he said. “We might both be seen, and then it would be as bad for you as for me. There’ll be unavoidable risks enough in this job without taking on any we needn’t.”
They discussed their plans in detail, then Cheyne remarked: “Now that’s settled, what’s wrong with your coming and having a bit of dinner with me as a prelude to adventure?”
“That sounds bookish. Are you keen on books? I’ll go and have dinner if I may pay my share, not otherwise.”
Cheyne protested, but she was adamant. It appeared further she was a great reader, and they discussed books until it was time to go out. Then after dinner at an Italian restaurant in Soho they took the tube to Hendon and began to walk towards Hopefield Avenue.
The night was chilly for mid-, but calm and dry. It would soon be quite dark out of the radius of the street lamps, as the quarter moon had not yet risen and clouds obscured the light of the stars. In the main street there was plenty of traffic, but Hopefield Avenue was deserted and their footsteps rang out loudly on the pavements.
“Let’s walk past it,” Miss Merrill suggested, “and perhaps we can hide and watch what goes on.”
They did so. Laurel Lodge looked as before except that the lower front windows were lighted up. Building operations, however, had been much advanced in the six weeks since Cheyne’s last visit. The almost completed walls of a house stood on the next lot, and the house in which the supposed dead body of Cheyne had been abandoned was practically complete.
“Half-finished houses are the stunt in this game,” Cheyne observed. “Suppose we go back to that next door to our friends and see from there if anything happens.”
Five minutes later they had passed along the lane at the back of the houses and taken up their positions in what was evidently to be the hall of the new house. A small window looked out from its side, not forty feet from the hall door of Laurel Lodge. Cheyne made a seat of a plank laid across two little heaps of bricks and they sat down and waited.
They were so ignorant as to the steps usually taken by a detective in such a situation that their idea of watching the house was simply adopted in the Micawberish hope that somehow something might turn up to help them. What that something might be they had no idea. But with the extraordinary luck which so often seems reserved for those who blindly plunge, they had not waited ten minutes before they received some really important information.
The unconscious agent was a postman. They saw him first pass near a lamp farther down the street, and then watched him gradually approach, calling in one house after another. Presently he reached the gate of Laurel Lodge, and opening it, passed inside.
From where they sat, the watchers, being in line with the front of the house, were not actually in sight of the hall door. But there was a heap of building material in front of their hiding place and Cheyne, slipping hurriedly out, crouched behind the pile in such a position that he could see what might take place.
In due course the postman reached the door, but instead of delivering his letters and retreating, he knocked and stood waiting. The door was opened by a woman, and
