proceedings might be misunderstood if they were seen.

"Not a bit of it!" he had the nerve to say as he bent over the tarnished letter-box. "You're with me, Gillon, and isn't it your job to keep an eye on these houses?"

"Yes, but----"

"What's the matter with this letter-box? It won't open."

"That's so that letters can't be shot into the empty hall. He nailed it up on purpose before he went. I found him at it."

"And didn't it strike you as an extraordinary thing to do?" Uvo was standing upright now. "Of course it did, or you'd have mentioned it to Coysh and me the other day."

It was no use denying the fact.

"What's happening to their letters?" he went on, as though I could know.

"I expect they're being re-directed."

"To the wife?"

"I suppose so."

And my voice sank with my heart, and I felt ashamed, and repeated myself aggressively.

"Exactly!" There was no supposing about Uvo. "The wife at some mysterious address in the country--poor soul!"

"Where are you going now?"

He had dived under the front windows, muttering to himself as much as to me. I caught him up at the high side gate into the back garden.

"Lend me a hand," said Delavoye when he had tried the latch.

"You're not going over?"

"That I am, and it'll be your duty to follow. Or I could let you through. Well--if you won't!"

And in the angle between party-fence and gate he was struggling manfully when I went to his aid as a lesser evil; in a few seconds we were both in the back garden of the empty house, with the gate still bolted behind us.

"Now, if it were ours," resumed Delavoye when he had taken breath, "I should say the lavatory window was 

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