XXXV
IN THE GARDEN
It was a few minutes after half past eight when Miss Peterkin chanced to meet her friend Mr. Carrington in the entrance hall of the Kings Arms. He was evidently going out, and she noticed he was rather differently habited from usual, wearing now a long, light top coat of a very dark grey hue, and a dark coloured felt hat. They were not quite so becoming as his ordinary garb, she thought, but then Mr. Carrington looked the gentleman in anything.
"Are you going to desert us to-night, Mr. Carrington?" asked the manageress.
"I have a letter or two to post," said he, "they are an excuse for a stroll. I want a breath of fresh air."
He closed the glass door of the hotel behind him and stood for a moment on the pavement in the little circle of radiance thrown by the light of the hall. Mr. Carrington's leisurely movements undoubtedly played no small part in the unsuspecting confidence which he inspired. Out of the light he turned, strolling easily, down the long stretch of black pavement with its few checkers of lamplight here and there, and the empty, silent street of the little country town at his side. It was a very dark, moonless night, and the air was almost quite still. Looking upward, he could see a rare star or two twinkle, but all the rest of the Heavens were under cloud. Judging from his contented expression the night seemed to please him.
He passed the post office, but curiously enough omitted to drop any letters into the box. The breath of fresh air seemed, in fact, to be his sole preoccupation. Moving with a slightly quickened stride, but still easily, he turned out of that street into another even quieter and darker, and in a short time he was nearing the lights of the station. He gave these a wide birth, however, and presently was strolling up a very secluded road, with a few villas and gardens upon the one side, and black space on the other. There for a moment he stopped and transferred something from the pocket of his inner coat into the pocket of his top coat. It was a small compact article, and a ray of light from a lamp-post behind him gleamed for an instant upon a circular metal orifice at one end of it.
Before he moved on, he searched the darkness intently, before him and behind, but saw no sign of any other passenger. And then he turned the rim of his dark felt hat down over his face, stepped out briskly for some fifty yards further, and turned sharply through an open gate. Once again he stopped and listened keenly, standing now in the shadow of the trees beside the drive. In his dark top coat and with his hat turned over his face he was as nearly invisible as a man could be, but even this did not seem to satisfy him, for in a moment he gently parted the branches of the trees and pushed through the belt of planting to the lawn beyond.