He walked back along the village street to the Manor, and dressed for dinner, his mind full of dark forebodings.
What would be the end? What could it be, except triumph for those enemies, the very names of whom were, with such tantalising persistency, withheld.
Half an hour after he had left the Doctor’s cottage the village telegraph-boy handed Aggie a message which she at once carried to her foster-father.
He tore it open, started, read it through several times, and then placed it carefully in the flames.
Then he hurriedly put on his boots, overcoat and hat, and went forth, explaining to his wife that he was suddenly called on urgent business to London.
That evening, just before ten o’clock, a short dark figure could have been seen slinking along by the railings of Berkeley Square, indistinct in the night mist, which, with the dusk, had settled over London.
The man, though he moved constantly up and down to keep himself warm, kept an alert and watchful eye upon the big sombre-looking mansion opposite—the residence, as almost any passer-by would have told the stranger, of Sir Felix Challas, the anti-Semitic philanthropist.
Over the semicircular fanlight a light burned brightly, but the inner shutters of the ground floor rooms were closed, while the drawing-room above was lighted.
Time after time the silent watcher passed and repassed the house, taking in every detail with apparent curiosity, yet ever anxious and ever expectant.
The constable standing at the corner of Hill Street eyed the dwarfed man with some suspicion, but on winter nights the London streets, even in the West End, abound with homeless loafers.