"Do you mean Mr. Strange?"
"That's the name: a lodger at Mother Jinks's. He and the lady watched you in, Sir Karl; they stood close by the gate among the trees; and then they walked off down the road together."
Karl's pulses beat a shade more quickly. "Why should they have been watching me? What could be their motive?"
"Miss Blake did not intend to watch--as I take it. I saw her coming along with a sharpish step from the direction of that blessed St. Jerome's, late as it was--Cattacomb may have been treating his flock to a nocturnal service. When she was close upon the Maze she must have heard your footsteps, for she drew suddenly behind the trees to hide herself. After you were in, she came out of her shelter, and another with her--the man Strange. So he must have been hidden there beforehand, Sir Karl: and, I should say, to watch."
Karl was silent. He did not like to hear this. It seemed to menace further danger.
"I went in to warn Sir Adam against this man," he observed; "to tell him never to be off his guard, day or night. He is a London detective!"
"What--Strange is?" exclaimed the agent, with as much astonishment as his low tones allowed him to express. "A London detective, Sir Karl?"
"Yes, he is."
Mr. Smith's face fell considerably. "But--what is he doing down here?" he inquired. "Who's he after? Surely not Sir Adam?"
"No, not Sir Adam. He is after some criminal who--who does not exist in the place at all," added Karl, not choosing to be more explicit, considering that it was the man before him whom he had suspected of being the said criminal, and feeling ashamed of his suspicions now that they were dispelled, and he had to speak of it with him face to face. "The danger is, that in looking after one man the police may come upon the track of another."