All through that evening I waited in patience in the Overstrand Road—waited to see if Jules Jeanjean would come forth again.
At half-past ten, when the moon was shining brightly over the calm sea, I saw him come out, wearing a soft grey felt hat and light drab overcoat. He laughed at the neat maid who opened the door for him, and instinctively put his hand to his hat to raise it, as foreigners so often do.
Instead of walking towards the town, as I had expected, he turned in the direction of Suffield Park, the pretty suburb of Cromer, and actually passed within a few yards of where I was crouching behind the laurel hedge of somebody's front garden.
I allowed him to get some distance ahead, then, treading lightly upon my rubber heels, swiftly followed.
He made in the direction of the great Eastern Railway Station, until he came to the arch where the line crosses the road, when from the shadow there crept silently another figure of a man.
At that hour, and at that point, all was deserted. From where I stood I could see the lights of the great Links Hotel high up, dominating the landscape, and nearer were the long, slowly-moving shafts of extreme brilliance, shining from the lighthouse as a warning to mariners on the North Sea.
Jules Jeanjean, the man of a hundred adventures, met the stranger. It was a tryst, most certainly. Under the shadow of a wall I drew back, and watched the pair with eager interest. They whispered, and it was apparent that they were discussing some very serious and weighty matter. Of necessity I was so far away that I could not distinguish the features of the stranger. All I could see was that he was very well dressed, and wore dark clothes, a straw hat, and carried a cane.
Together they walked slowly in the shadow. Jeanjean had linked his arm in that of the stranger, who seemed young and athletic, and was talking very earnestly—perhaps relating what had occurred at the inquest that afternoon, for, though I had not seen him there, I suspected that he might have been present.
I saw Jeanjean give something to his companion, but I could not detect what it was. Something he took very slowly and carefully from his pocket and handed it to the young man, who at first hesitated to accept it, and only did so after Jeanjean's repeated and firm insistence.
It was as though the man I had recognized that afternoon in Cromer was bending the other by his dominant personality—compelling him to act against his will.