All the time I was speaking I was watching him carefully to see if I could detect the least sign of his recognizing me.  For any such indication, however, we might have been utter strangers.

He accepted my falsehood as politely as I had received his.

“Well, in that case,” he said, with a smile, “there is really no need for me to bother you any further.  I will tell the Surveyor that you are a strictly law-abiding citizen.  Meanwhile”—­he stepped back and again raised his hat—­“let me apologize once more for having broken into your place.”

Whether there was any deliberate irony in his remark I was unable to guess; his manner at all events gave no hint of it.

“You needn’t apologize,” I returned artlessly.  “It was my own fault for leaving the door open.”

I thought I saw the faintest possible quiver at the corner of his lips, but if so it was gone again at once.

“Yes,” he said gravely.  “You will find it safer to keep the place locked up.  Good-day, sir.”

“Good-day,” I replied, and turning deliberately away from him I sauntered off towards the hut.

I did not look round until I had reached the door; and even then I made a pretence of dropping my keys and stooping to pick them up.  The precaution, however, seemed a little superfluous.  Mr. Latimer was some thirty or forty yards away, walking inland across the marsh in the direction of Tilbury.  I couldn’t help wondering whether he had noticed the mast of the Betty, which was just visible in the distance, sticking up demurely above the bank of the creek.

I stepped inside the hut—­it was really little more than a hut—­and closed the door.  The first impression I received was one of being back in my prison cell.  The only light in the place filtered in through a tiny and very dirty window, which looked out in the direction that Latimer had taken.  For the rest, as soon as my eyes were used to the gloom, I made out a camp bed with blankets on it, a small wooden table and chair, a jug and basin, and in the farther corner of the room a miscellaneous collection of cooking and eating utensils.  There was also a large wooden box which I imagined to contain food.

I took in all this practically at a glance, for my mind was still too occupied with my late visitor to trouble much about anything else.

I sat down on the bed and tried to think out the situation clearly.  There could be no doubt that Latimer had been spying on the place, if such an unpleasant word could be applied to a gentleman who was supposed to be in Government service.  The question was, what did he suspect?  I had pretty good evidence that he was up against McMurtrie and the others in some shape or other, and presumably it was on account of my connection with them that I had been favoured with his attentions.  Still, this didn’t seem to make the situation any the more cheerful for me.  If Latimer was really a secret-service man, as some one had told Tommy, it stood to reason that I must be assisting in some particularly shady and dangerous sort of enterprise.  I had no special objection to this from the moral point of view, but on the other hand I certainly didn’t want to throw away my hardly-won liberty before I had had the satisfaction of settling accounts with George.