"Where are you going now?"
He had dived under the front windows, muttering to himself as much as to me. I caught him up at the high side gate into the back garden.
"Lend me a hand," said Delavoye when he had tried the latch.
"You're not going over?"
"That I am, and it'll be your duty to follow. Or I could let you through. Well—if you won't!"
And in the angle between party-fence and gate he was struggling manfully when I went to his aid as a lesser evil; in a few seconds we were both in the back garden of the empty house, with the gate still bolted behind us.
"Now, if it were ours," resumed Delavoye when he had taken breath, "I should say the lavatory window was the vulnerable point. Lavatory window, please!"
"But, Delavoye, look here!"
"I'm looking," said he, and we faced each other in the broad moonlight that flooded the already ragged lawn.
"If you think I'm going to let you break into this house, you're very much mistaken."