For a time it had been exciting, absorbingly interesting, to know himself behind the scenes of this mystery play which had all the world for an audience. But it was a situation of quite unique danger. Séverac Bablon was opposed to tremendous interests. Apart from the activity of the ordinary authorities, there were those in the field against this man of mystery to whom money, in furtherance of their end, was no object.
Sheard realised, at times—and these were uncomfortable times—that his strange acquaintance with Séverac Bablon quite conceivably might end in Brixton Prison.
Yet there are some respects wherein the copy-hunter and the scalp-hunter tally. The thrill of the New Journalism has enlisted in the ranks of the Fleet Street army some who, in a former age, must have sought their fortune with the less mighty weapon. A love of adventure was some part of the complement of Sheard; and now, suspecting that a Pinkerton man lurked in the neighbourhood, and uncertain if his wife slept, he awaited his visitor, with nerves tensely strung. But there was an exquisite delight tingling through his veins—an appreciation of his peril wholly pleasurable.
Faintly, he heard a key grate in the lock of the front door. The door was opened, and gently closed.
Sheard stood up.
Into the study walked Séverac Bablon.
He was perfectly attired, as usual; wore evening-dress, and a heavy fur-lined coat. His silk hat he held in his hand. As he stood within the doorway, where the rays from the shaded lamp failed to touch his features, he seemed, in the semi-light, a man more than humanly handsome.
"The house is watched," began Sheard—and broke off.
A shadow had showed, momentarily, upon the cream of the drawn casement-curtains. Someone was crouching on the lawn, under the study window.
"Did you see that?" jerked the pressman. "Somebody looked in! The curtain isn't quite drawn to at that corner."