"Do you know which room that is?" Bowyer asked of me in a whisper.
"The library."
We spread out then and made a circuit of the garden wall. There was no one any longer watching, and we heard no whistle.
"They have gone," I said to Bowyer.
"Or they are inside," he replied, and as he spoke we heard feet brushing upon the grass and a constable loomed up in front of us.
"This way, sir," he whispered. "They are inside."
We followed him round to the back of the garden. Just about the middle of that back wall the men stood in a cluster. We joined them, and saw that an upright ladder rose to the parapet. On the other side of the wall a thick coppice of trees grew, dark and high. Without a word, one after another we mounted the ladder and let ourselves down by the trees into the garden. A few paces took us to the edge of the coppice, and the house stood in the open before us. Standing in the shadow of the branches, we looked up. The house was in complete darkness but for the long row of library windows upon the first floor. In these, however, the curtains were not drawn, and the light blazed out upon the green foliage. There was no sound, no sign of any disorder. Once more I began to think that I had brought Bowyer and his men here upon a fool's errand. I said as much to him in a whisper.
"But the ladder?" he answered, "my men found it there." And even while he spoke there appeared at one of these windows a stranger. It was as much as I could do in that awful moment to withhold a cry, I gripped Bowyer's arm with so much violence that he could show me the bruises of my fingers a week afterwards. But he stood like a rock now.
"Is that Rymer?"
"No. I have never seen him in my life before."