He had warned General Raynor to be careful to lock that window, and now here he was not only disregarding that warning, but pushing the sashes wide apart.
"Coming again, is she, General?" said Cleek in the soundless words of thought. "A bad move, my friend, a very bad move. One may not recognize a man's voice from a simple 'Sh-h-h!' but when he steps out of a library with a black mud-spot on the toe of his house shoes and a green smudge on his cuff——"
He stopped and crouched back under the trees, and was very, very still.
Through the darkness a faint rustling sound had suddenly risen, the soft falling of a foot, the careful passage of a body between lines of leaves.
Some one was advancing cautiously toward that darkened and opened window.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE VIEW HALLOO
That the nocturnal visitor would prove to be Lady Clavering Cleek had not the smallest shadow of a doubt, although he marvelled much at her temerity in venturing into the grounds of the Grange after that experience at the wall door so short a time previously, and he therefore remained as breathless and as still as the shadows surrounding him, and waited the coming of events. Not, however, without some slight feeling of disappointment at the thought that, intricate and puzzling as this case had been, it now promised to be solved in such a tame and paltry manner; for if the newcomer should prove to be Lady Clavering, as, naturally, he had every reason for supposing, the affair would resolve itself into simply playing the part of eavesdropper at her interview with the General, and then making capital of the information thus obtained.
The intruder was advancing with extreme caution, but lacking his own peculiar gift of soundless stepping and noiseless movement, did not succeed in passing between hedge and coppice without the betraying rustle of disturbed leaves; and it was out of this circumstance the mischief which followed was formed.