Toward nine o’clock in the evening a man who looked to be a laborer passed out of the back door and went into the garden. Jim noted that the man looked at his watch and then seemed to be waiting. After a time he went down to the gardens, losing himself in the blackness beyond the electric lights.
Not fifteen minutes after he had gone there was another step inside the kitchen and Jim quickly opened the door. Arthur Gates stepped out, looked all around him without paying any attention to Jim, and then set off at a rapid pace for the garden, following the same direction taken by the man. Jim was curious at once.
“I’d like to know what is going on,” he reflected. “I wonder if I ought to go down and see? Very few people are coming through any more, and besides, if I do leave my post, it will be thought I did so to run an errand. I guess I’ll take a chance on it.”
Seeing that no one was about Jim slipped quickly to the side of the yard and away from the glare of the lights. Then, following a path which wound down into the farther reaches of the place he moved forward, treading with infinite care, avoiding gravelled walks where possible and fairly creeping over them when they could not be avoided. In a short time he reached the garden and saw ahead of him in the darkness two forms.
A screen of bushes loomed between him and the two men and Jim crouched as he made his way to them. Once in their shelter he was able to hear plainly what was being said.
“—close against the back wall,” Gates was saying.
“You want me to mark the spot so you’ll know the place?” the man asked.
“No,” replied Gates. “I don’t care if I never see it again.”
“Not valuable, eh?” the man asked, cautiously.
“No, only a trinket I won at school, but I’m sick and tired of having it around. It is better off buried. But never mind that; all you have to do is to bury the thing. I don’t want it done by daylight, either. Will you do it tomorrow night?”