And here, whilst Mr Fanshawe waits, let me interpolate a few lines.
When Mr Boxall left the shade of the trees and emerged into the full moonlight, the clock of Glen Druid House was striking eleven. Beneath the anger boiling in his soul lay the deep satisfaction a man experiences when he has kicked his antithesis. He made his way across the park-land and lawn, and, on tiptoe, crossed the gravel path to the front steps; reaching the hall door, he turned the handle gently and found the door locked.
Patsy had no hand in the locking of the door. The idea of inveigling Mr Boxall out on the lawn to interview Mr Mooney was one of those flash-in-the-pan ideas constantly occurring in his harum-scarum brain; he had forgotten all about the business in the preparations for the burglar, and, had he known of Mr Boxall’s plight, he would have been the first to let him in. Of course, the excluded one could have knocked, but that would have meant explanations, so he temporised; in the midst of his indecision, the clock in the turret struck the half-hour after eleven. Mr Boxall was on the point of knocking, when the idea occurred to him to go round the house on the chance of finding a back door open, and, in putting this scheme into operation, he lost his way in the “scrubbery.” It had gone twelve, when through an opening in the laurels he saw Patsy’s window and two dark forms standing before it. Mr Boxall paused to watch.
Ten minutes passed; they seemed an hour. Could anything have happened to Mr Murphy? Then, all at once, a faint noise, as of a foot upon gravel, came from the outside, and, dim and vague as a fish at the pane of a twilit aquarium tank, a figure blurred the window.
Mr Fanshawe gave Larry Lyburn a prod with his elbow, half to awaken that individual’s wits to their full activity, half for company’s sake.
The form of the house-breaker darkened the window space; they could hear the rubbing of his shoulders against the sash. A stick was thrust into the room, and tapped upon the floor, then came the sound of the millifluous voice of Mr Murphy.
“Patsy, avick,” said Mr Murphy.
“Is that yourself, Mr Murphy?” came Patsy’s voice.
“Meself and no other, thrue to time. Is the ould lady a-bed?”