Smith went racing down the stairs like a man possessed. Heavy with such a foreboding of
calamity as I had not known for two years, I followed him--along the hall and out into the
road. The very peace and beauty of the night in some way increased my mental agitation.
The sky was lighted almost tropically with such a blaze of stars as I could not recall to
have seen since, my futile search concluded, I had left Egypt. The glory of the moonlight
yellowed the lamps speckled across the expanse of the common. The night was as still as
night can ever be in London. The dimming pulse of a cab or car alone disturbed the
stillness.
With a quick glance to right and left, Smith ran across on to the common, and, leaving the
door wide open behind me, I followed. The path which Eltham had pursued terminated
almost opposite to my house. One's gaze might follow it, white and empty, for several
hundred yards past the pond, and further, until it became overshadowed and was lost
amid a clump of trees.
I came up with Smith, and side by side we ran on, whilst pantingly, I told my tale.
"It was a trick to get you away from him!" cried Smith. "They meant no doubt to make
some attempt at your house, but as he came out with you, an alternative plan--"
Abreast of the pond, my companion slowed down, and finally stopped.
"Where did you last see Eltham?" he asked rapidly.
I took his arm, turning him slightly to the right, and pointed across the moonbathed
common.
"You see that clump of bushes on the other side of the road?" I said. "There's a path to the
left of it. I took that path and he took this. We parted at the point where they meet--"
Smith walked right down to the edge of the water and peered about over the surface.
What he hoped to find there I could not imagine. Whatever it had been he was
disappointed, and he turned to me again, frowning perplexedly, and tugging at the lobe of
his left ear, an old trick which reminded me of gruesome things we had lived through in
the past.
"Come on," he jerked. "It may be amongst the trees."
From the tone of his voice I knew that he was tensed up nervously, and his mood but
added to the apprehension of my own.
"What may be amongst the trees, Smith?" I asked.
