Simmonds considered this for a moment.

“I don’t know but what you’re right,” he agreed, at last.  “We’ll arrange it that way, then,” and he went away presently to call in his men.  He soon came back with them, and gave them careful and detailed instructions as to what he wanted them to do, dwelling especially upon the importance of their keeping carefully concealed.  Then we got the ladders and put them in place.

“Be careful not to touch the top of the wall,” I cautioned them; “there’s broken glass on top, and the merest touch may mean a bad injury.”

“When you get down on the other side,” Simmonds added, “take down the ladder and hide it in the shrubbery at the foot of the wall.  Somebody might see it if you left it standing there.  But for heaven’s sake, don’t get mixed up so you can’t find it again.  Be back here at eleven-thirty, and your relief will be ready.  You’ve got your whistles?  Well, blow them good and hard if there’s any trouble.  And be mighty careful not to let anyone see you, or you may get snake-bit!”

The men mounted the ladder, crossed the wall and disappeared on the other side, and Simmonds and I turned back to the house.  I felt as though a great load had been lifted from my shoulders.  With those two men so close at hand, surely nothing very serious could happen to Miss Vaughan!

Simmonds and I spent the remainder of the evening in discussing the case, but neither of us was able to shed any new light upon it.  Shortly after eleven, the two men who were to form the relief arrived, and just as we started for the wall, Godfrey drove in from the highway.  It needed but a moment to tell him of our arrangements, which he heartily approved.  He joined us, and we were soon at the foot of the ladder.  While we waited, Simmonds gave the new men the same minute instructions he had given the others; and presently we heard a slight scraping against the wall, and the men who had been on duty recrossed it.

They had nothing of especial interest to report.  The yogi and Miss Vaughan had taken a stroll through the grounds early in the evening; and my heart sank as the detective added that they seemed to be talking earnestly together.  Then they had re-entered the house, and Miss Vaughan had remained in the library looking at a book, while her companion passed on out of sight.  At the end of an hour, she had closed the book, shut and locked the outer door, and turned out the light.  Another light had appeared shortly afterwards in a room upstairs.  It, too, had been extinguished half an hour later, and the detectives presumed that she had gone to bed.  After that, the house had remained in complete darkness.  The servants had spent the evening sitting on a porch at the rear of the house, talking together, but had gone in early, presumably to bed.

When the men had finished their report, Simmonds dismissed them, and the two who were to take up the watch crossed the wall and passed from sight.