Then and there, in my annoyance,
I took my own decision. Since he would tell me nothing of the
result of his vigils, I determined to keep one on my own account,
and that very evening found my way to the millionaire's front
gates.
The house he was occupying is, I believe, quite the largest in
the St. John's Wood district. It stands in the angle formed by
two broad thoroughfares, neither of which, as it happens, is a
'bus route, and I doubt if many quieter spots exist within the
four-mile radius. Quiet also was the great square house, in its
garden of grass-plots and shrubs; the lights were low, the
millionaire and his friends obviously spending their evening
elsewhere. The garden walls were only a few feet high. In one
there was a side door opening into a glass passage; in the other
two five-barred, grained-and-varnished gates, one at either end
of the little semi-circular drive, and both wide open. So still
was the place that I had a great mind to walk boldly in and learn
something of the premises; in fact, I was on the point of doing
so, when I heard a quick, shuffling step on the pavement behind
me. I turned round and faced the dark scowl and the dirty
clenched fists of a dilapidated tramp.
"You fool!" said he. "You utter idiot!"
"Raffles!"
"That's it," he whispered savagely; "tell all the
neighborhood--give me away at the top of your voice!"
With that he turned his back upon me, and shambled down the road,
shrugging his shoulders and muttering to himself as though I had
refused him alms.
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