“This will do admirably,” he said, settling himself in the window-seat. “If you must smoke, Tab, don’t bring your pipe within sight of that gate.”
Tab groaned and laid his pipe upon the fender.
Ten minutes later Ursula came into the room.
“May I stay?” she whispered. “I have put out my bedroom light most artistically.”
They conversed in whispers for an hour, and Tab was beginning to feel sleepy when a hiss from Carver stopped him in the middle of a sentence. Looking out of the window he saw a dark figure by the gate. It was impossible to distinguish more than the outlines. It appeared to be a man of considerable height, but this might have been and probably was an illusion. It wore a broad-brimmed hat, presumably dark; more than this they could not see. They waited in silence as the gate opened and the figure stole noiselessly into the garden.
It was half-way to the door when another figure appeared. It came from nowhere, seeming to rise up from the ground; and then before the man in the wide-awake hat could draw back, the second man had flung himself upon him. The watchers sat paralyzed until Carter, jumping to his feet, ran out of the room, Tab close behind him.
When they flung open the door, both figures had disappeared. Carver sprang toward the gate and stumbled. His foot had struck a soft bulk which stretched across the garden path, he turned back, flashing an electric lamp upon the object. It was a man, and for a moment they did not see his face.
“Who are you?” Carver pulled the man over on his back. “Well, I’m—”
The man at his feet was Yeh Ling!