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any over that either.

I began to think that there was nothing doing, that he'd just come on the trip for

his health, but I remembered that he hadn't changed for dinner, though it was by

way of being a slap-up hotel, so it seemed likely enough that he'd be going out on

his real business afterwards.

"Sure enough, about nine o'clock, so he did. Took a car across the town--mighty

pretty place by the way, I guess I'll take Jane there for a spell when I find her--

and then paid it off and struck out along those pine-woods on the top of the cliff.

I was there too, you understand. We walked, maybe, for half an hour. There's a

lot of villas all the way along, but by degrees they seemed to get more and more

thinned out, and in the end we got to one that seemed the last of the bunch. Big

house it was, with a lot of piny grounds around it.

"It was a pretty black night, and the carriage drive up to the house was dark as

pitch. I could hear him ahead, though I couldn't see him. I had to walk carefully

in case he might get on to it that he was being followed. I turned a curve and I

was just in time to see him ring the bell and get admitted to the house. I just

stopped where I was. It was beginning to rain, and I was soon pretty near soaked

through. Also, it was almighty cold.

Whittington didn't come out again, and by and by I got kind of restive, and began

to mouch around. All the ground floor windows were shuttered tight, but

upstairs, on the first floor (it was a two-storied house) I noticed a window with a

light burning and the curtains not drawn.

"Now, just opposite to that window, there was a tree growing. It was about thirty

foot away from the house, maybe, and I sort of got it into my head that, if I

climbed up that tree, I'd very likely be able to see into that room. Of course, I

knew there was no reason why Whittington should be in that room rather than in

any other--less reason, in fact, for the betting would be on his being in one of the

reception-rooms downstairs. But I guess I'd got the hump from standing so long

in the rain, and anything seemed better than going on doing nothing. So I started

up.

It wasn't so easy, by a long chalk! The rain had made the boughs mighty

slippery, and it was all I could do to keep a foothold, but bit by bit I managed it,

until at last there I was level with the window.

But then I was disappointed. I was too far to the left. I could only see sideways

into the room. A bit of curtain, and a yard of wallpaper was all I could command.

The Secret Adversary