The small postern gate set in the red brick wall which surrounded the Great House was opened noiselessly and Peter Johnson stepped into the lane. He stood there for a moment or two perfectly still, with the air of a man listening—a hopeless task, it seemed, on such a night. Whilst he listened, his eyes wandered up and down the street, away across the churchyard and into the wood behind, past the steeple and over the sleeping country to the horizon. It seemed, however, that if he watched for any unusual sight or listened for any unusual sounds, both efforts were in vain. After a few moments he took another step forward and, with the postern gate still open, stood gazing thoughtfully and watchfully over the medley of red-tiled roofs, up the great avenue beyond, to where the imposing front of the Hall, with its long rows of uncurtained windows, filled the background with a serene and brooding dignity. He stood there perhaps for as long as five minutes, until he seemed to become part of the dreaming landscape, a statue petrified by the moonlight, the only living figure in that drama of repose, all the geniality and kindliness drained somehow from his expression, a sinister and watchful figure, alien and inimical.
Suddenly he seemed to stiffen. From the outside of a small wood adjoining the Hall flashed a light—little more than a pin-prick of fire, but vivid and distinct. Three times it flashed. Then it disappeared. Peter Johnson, as silently as he had come, stepped back and, vanishing through the postern gate, reëntered his own domains.
CHAPTER III
Mr. Peter Johnson, on the following morning, was indulging in the harmless occupation of practising mashie shots with a dozen golf balls over some shrubs upon the front lawn of the Great House, when Morton, his newly engaged butler who had arrived a few days before from a registry office at Norwich, sallied through the garden door, followed by a young lady. Mr. Johnson promptly abandoned his diversion and came forward.
“Miss Besant to see you, sir,” the servant announced.
Mr. Johnson, without committing himself to speech, exhibited a certain measure of cordiality. He held out a welcoming hand, which, after a moment’s hesitation, the girl accepted.
“I must apologise for coming in like this, Mr. Johnson,” she said. “Madame De Fourgenet, the lady to whom I am companion, insisted upon it.”
“I beg that you will not apologise,” was the civil reply. “I am very glad to see you. You are my opposite neighbour then, it seems.”
“We live at the Little House,” the young lady assented. “For over a year—all the time that the place has been empty, in fact—your gardener, Smith, has been accustomed to assist our one servant for half an hour each day, cutting wood or something of that sort. Madame has the strongest objection to having a stranger in the house, or even in the garden, and she sent me across to ask whether it were possible to make any arrangement by which we could continue to have the services of Smith for that time each day.”
Mr. Johnson made no immediate reply. He was exceedingly interested in the young lady, and he seemed to be carrying out a line of thought with regard to her. From the moment of her appearance her expression had not changed. Her tone, which was level and indifferent, was the tone of a person who had no concern in what she said; she spoke mechanically, as though choosing the readiest words with the sole object of concluding an unavoidable task. She was tall, inclined to be of full figure, paler than she ought to have been, living in the country, with eyes which seemed seldom fully open, masses of light brown hair brushed back from her forehead, and a mouth whose discontented corners gave to her expression a weary, almost a petulant note. No ordinary person, an admirer of the sex, studying her as she had crossed the lawn, would probably have troubled to look at her again; Mr. Johnson, however, was not an ordinary person. It was one of his gifts to appreciate people for what they were, not for what they seemed to be. He realised that there were certain exceptional characteristics about the young woman who stood waiting for his reply.