"Besides, it's only half an hour more now; and Pete and I want to be in bed and sound asleep by the time you go into action. Anything more you want to take up with me?"
"At this moment, monsieur—nothing."
"Then we'll be going." Morphew heaved out of his chair. "Good night," he mumbled in heavy effort to sound well-disposed. "Don't let 'em put anything over on you—watch your step."
"I shall not fail to do so." Lanyard was so occupied with cigarette-case and matches that he didn't see the hand which Morphew half-heartedly offered and with ill-disguised relief withdrew. "And you, too, monsieur—dream sweetly and—but surely there must be some appropriate American expression—don't fall out of bed!"
Pagan offered slightly curdled noises of valediction. Lanyard accepted them for what they were worth and dismissed their maker with the same gesture. Like lion and jackal—like a corpulent sloth of a lion attended by an exceptionally spry and pert jackal—the two familiars went into the house.
The front doors were closed and bolted, the shine of their fan-light grew more dull, the stairs complained of a weighty and deliberate tread, windows in the second storey burned brightly for several minutes, throwing saffron beams over the edge of the veranda roof to stain the lawns, then were darkened, Lanyard imagined that he heard a creak—Morphew's bed, or some door resenting an attempt to open it by stealth—and heard nothing more from the interior of the house.
There was no real stillness where he sat, on the edge of the open night. A wind soft and warm was blowing, gravid with presentiments of rain; occasional gusts of sterner stuff wrung aeolian roars from tormented tree tops, sharpened the rattle of leaves incessantly a-shiver, and sent strange, shapeless shadows scurrying across the lawns like spirits of darkness reft from their moorings in shrubbery and undergrowth. The moon had set, the stars were few and far and faint, vast convoys of cloud cruising beneath them drenched the world with Cimmerian mirk for minutes at a time; a night made to the order of sinners and spies . . .
He knew very well he was spied upon even then, while he sat small and still, his cigarette burning itself out a dozen feet away on the drive, the phosphorescent dial of his watch in the close cup of his palm. A quarter to three—five minutes more . . . He had told Morphew the truth about the man whom he had seen steal up to stand watch over them—more accurately, over Lanyard—from the cover of a mass of shrubbery; had lied in denying the discovery; both for sheer mischievous enjoyment of Morphew's loss of countenance when he saw the whole tissue of his scheme imperiled by the mischance, as he must have reckoned it, of a botched job of surveillance.
Taking fright of what he had overheard Lanyard say, likely enough, that spy had made early occasion to seek a safer hiding place. But nothing persuaded Lanyard that he had marked down the only man assigned to the duty of seeing that he performed in faithful accord with his commitments. He counted confidently on every step of his private via dolorosa being dogged by a corporal's guard of shadows . . .
It was, however, in his mind to give them something less elusive than his shadow to prove their skill with . . .