It seemed to me a road of building-sites, with but this
one house built, all by itself, at one end; but the night was too
dark for more than a mere impression.
Raffles, however, had seen the place by daylight, and had come
prepared for the special obstacles; already he was reaching up
and putting champagne corks on the spikes, and in another moment
he had his folded covert-coat across the corks. I stepped back
as he raised himself, and saw a little pyramid of slates snip the
sky above the gate; as he squirmed over I ran forward, and had my
own weight on the spikes and corks and covert-coat when he gave
the latter a tug.
"Coming after all?"
"Rather!"
"Take care, then; the place is all bell-wires and springs. It's
no soft thing, this! There--stand still while I take off the
corks."
The garden was very small and new, with a grass-plot still in
separate sods, but a quantity of full-grown laurels stuck into
the raw clay beds. "Bells in themselves," as Raffles whispered;
"there's nothing else rustles so--cunning old beast!" And we
gave them a wide berth as we crept across the grass.
"He's gone to bed!"
"I don't think so, Bunny. I believe he's seen us."
"Why?"
"I saw a light."
"Where?"
"Downstairs, for an instant, when I--"
His whisper died away; he had seen the light again; and so had I.
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