“Someone is coming out of the house, Louis,” he warned his friend.  “It may be Hollyer, but he ought to have gone by this time.”

“I don’t hear anyone,” replied the other, but as he spoke a door banged noisily and Mr. Carlyle slipped into another seat and ensconced himself behind a copy of The Globe.

“Creake himself,” he whispered across the car, as a man appeared at the gate.  “Hollyer was right; he is hardly changed.  Waiting for a car, I suppose.”

But a car very soon swung past them from the direction in which Mr. Creake was looking and it did not interest him.  For a minute or two longer he continued to look expectantly along the road.  Then he walked slowly up the drive back to the house.

“We will give him five or ten minutes,” decided Carrados.  “Harris is behaving very naturally.”

Before even the shorter period had run out they were repaid.  A telegraph-boy cycled leisurely along the road, and, leaving his machine at the gate, went up to the cottage.  Evidently there was no reply, for in less than a minute he was trundling past them back again.  Round the bend an approaching tram clanged its bell noisily, and, quickened by the warning sound, Mr. Creake again appeared, this time with a small portmanteau in his hand.  With a backward glance he hurried on towards the next stopping-place, and, boarding the car as it slackened down, he was carried out of their knowledge.

“Very convenient of Mr. Creake,” remarked Carrados, with quiet satisfaction.  “We will now get the order and go over the house in his absence.  It might be useful to have a look at the wire as well.”

“It might, Max,” acquiesced Mr. Carlyle a little dryly.  “But if it is, as it probably is in Creake’s pocket, how do you propose to get it?”

“By going to the post office, Louis.”

“Quite so.  Have you ever tried to see a copy of a telegram addressed to someone else?”

“I don’t think I have ever had occasion yet,” admitted Carrados.  “Have you?”

“In one or two cases I have perhaps been an accessory to the act.  It is generally a matter either of extreme delicacy or considerable expenditure.”

“Then for Hollyer’s sake we will hope for the former here.”  And Mr. Carlyle smiled darkly and hinted that he was content to wait for a friendly revenge.

A little later, having left the car at the beginning of the straggling High Street, the two men called at the village post office.  They had already visited the house agent and obtained an order to view Brookbend Cottage, declining with some difficulty the clerk’s persistent offer to accompany them.  The reason was soon forthcoming.  “As a matter of fact,” explained the young man, “the present tenant is under our notice to leave.”

“Unsatisfactory, eh?” said Carrados encouragingly.

“He’s a corker,” admitted the clerk, responding to the friendly tone.  “Fifteen months and not a doit of rent have we had.  That’s why I should have liked—­”