Quickly we made ready for the desperate assignation, pulling our hats well down, in a way that we thought Billy would approve.

Four blocks along the street, by rapid walking, we came within hail of the intrepid young detective.  We were also opposite the marble yard of Cornelius Lawson, who wrought monuments for the dead of Little Arcady.  In front of the shop were a dozen finished and half-finished stones, ghostly white in the dusk.  It seemed indeed to be a spot impressive enough to meet even Billy’s captious requirements, but we had underrated the demands of his artist’s conscience.  Solon called to him.

“Won’t this do, Billy?”

Billy stopped dramatically, turned back upon us, and then exploded:—­

“Fools!  Would you ruin all?  You must not be seen addressing me.  Now I must disguise myself.”

Turning stealthily from us, he swiftly adjusted a beard that swept its sable flow down his youthful chest.  Then he addressed us again, still in tense, hoarse accents.

“Are you armed?”

“To the teeth!” answered Solon, with deadly grimness, and with a presence of mind which I envied.

“Then follow me, but at a distance!”

Meekly we obeyed.  While our hero stalked ahead, stroking his luxuriant whiskers ever and anon, we pursued him at an interval so great that not the most alert citizen of Little Arcady could have suspected this sinister undercurrent to his simple life.

It is a long walk to the cemetery, but we reached it to find Billy seated on the steps that lead over the fence, still shielded by his hairy envelope.

“A tough case!” he whispered as we sat by him.  “Our man has his spies out, and my every step is dogged both night and day.”

“Indeed?” we asked.

“You know that slim little duck that got in last night, purtendin’ he’s a shoe-drummer?  Well, he’s a detective hired by Potts to shadow me.  You know that big fat one, lettin’ on he’s agent for the Nonesuch Duplex Washin’ Machine?  He’s another.  You know that slick-lookin’ cuss—­like a minister—­been here all week, makin’ out he was canvassin’ for ’The Scenic Wonders of Our Land’ at a dollar a part, thirty-six parts and a portfoly to pack ’em away in?  Well, he’s an—­”

“Hold on, Billy, let’s get down to business,” reminded Solon.

“But I’ve throwed ’em all off for the nonce,” continued Billy, looking closely, I thought, to see if we were rightly affected by “nonce.”

“Yes, sir, it’s been the toughest darned case in my whole experience as an inside man.”

He waited for this to move us.

“What have you found out?” asked Solon; “and say, can’t you take off those whiskers, now that we are alone and unobserved?  You know they kind of scramble your voice.”

With cautious looks all about him, Billy bared his tender young face to the night.  A weak wind fretted in the cedars back of us, and an owl hooted.  It was not an occasion that he would permit to glide by him too swiftly.