All at once M. Popeau stopped walking, and listened intently. Yes, there was a curious sound coming from where they knew the house to be. But it was an outdoor sound, caused by something moving over to the right, where a clump of bushes hid the front door of La Solitude from that end of the terrace.
It was as if a big broom were being lightly brushed along the ground, and now and again there came the rustling of branches. The Frenchman told himself that it was probably some animal which had padded in from the mountain side.
They all walked slowly on, still in the same order. It was very dark, very unlike the brilliant moonlit night when the strange old Dutchman had dined at La Solitude. Still, even so, as they emerged on to the edge of the wood they could dimly see the lawn before them, and the long, low outline of the house.
All at once there came over those watching there, in the shadow of the dense grove of low trees, a feeling that there was something moving, processionally, on the terrace.
Taking Lily’s hand, M. Popeau walked forward on to the rough grass of the lawn.
Yes, there could be no doubt about it now, a group of people, propelling something along, were moving noiselessly across the front of the house.
The dim grey group passing so slowly, silently by, reminded M. Popeau, most incongruously, of a wonderful series of shadow pictures he had seen as a young man at a famous café in Montmartre, in which a vivid drama was enacted by silent, noiseless figures in action being thrown upon a screen. What did that sinister procession mean?
He hesitated as to what he should do—whether to give the signal to the two men to rush up and throw their searchlights on that group who were now advancing across the terrace right in front of where he and Lily stood breathlessly watching them, or to wait yet a little longer.
And then, all at once, something small and white leapt off the terrace and came running across the grass straight at the unseen watchers!
M. Popeau stopped and put out his hand. What on earth was this? Had the Poldas a dog? But his hand sank into thick, soft fur.