"Certainly," said he quietly. "I went out, as I often do last thing at night, to see that the coast is clear, and this time I found it wasn't. A man jumped up from behind the wall just as you saw."
"Who was he?"
"I can only suspect. I saw him for an instant by the light of my torch, and then it seemed less suspicious to put it out."
"I don't see that," I said.
"I am a cautious man," smiled Tiel, as easily as though the incident had not been of life and death importance.
"And what did he say to you?" I demanded impatiently.
"I spoke to him and asked him what he was doing there."
"What did he say to that?"
"I gave him no chance to answer—because, if the answer was what I feared, he wouldn't make it. I simply told him he would catch cold if he sat there on the grass, and gave him some details about my own misfortune in getting rheumatism through sleeping in damp sheets."
"I see," I said; "you simply tried to bluff him by behaving like an ordinary simple-minded honest clergyman?"