have no time to spare, but you will be able to get to the place I told you of by four all right—­no earlier, no later.  You must arrange to be there at four exactly.  You may spoil all if you are too early.  Almost as soon as you get there, Rupert Dunsmore will arrive.  You must do the rest for yourself, and then you must strike straight across country for here.  You can look up your routes on the map.  There will be less risk of attracting attention if you come and go by different ways.  You ought to be here again some time in the small hours.  I’ll let you in, and you’ll have cleared your own score with Rupert Dunsmore and earned more money than you ever have had in all your life before.  Now, can I depend on you?”

“Yes—­yes,” answered Dunn, over whom there had come a new and strange sense of unreality as he stood and listened to cold-blooded murder being thus calmly, coolly planned, as though it were some afternoon’s pleasure trip that was being arranged, so that he hardly knew whether he did, in fact, hear this smooth, low, unceasing voice that from the darkness at his side laid down such a bloody road for his feet to travel.

“Oh, yes, you can depend on me,” he said.  “But can I depend on you, when you say Rupert Dunsmore will be there at that time and that place?”

It was a moment or two before Deede Dawson answered, and then his voice was very low and soft and confident as he said: 

“Yes, you can—­absolutely.  You see, I know his plans.”

“Oh, do you?” Dunn said as though satisfied.  “Oh, well then, it’s no wonder you’re so sure.”

“No wonder at all,” agreed Deede Dawson.  “There’s just one other thing I can tell you.  Some one else will be there, too, at Brook Bourne Spring in Ottam’s Wood.”

“Who’s that?” asked Dunn sharply.

“The man,” said Deede Dawson, “who is behind all this—­the man you and I are working for—­the man who’s going to pay us, even better than he thinks.”

“He—­he will be there?” repeated Dunn, drawing a deep, breath.

“Yes, but you won’t see him, and it wouldn’t help you if you did,” Deede Dawson told him.  “Most likely he’ll be disguised—­a mask, perhaps; I don’t know.  Anyhow, he’ll be there.  Watching.  I’m not suggesting you would do such a thing as never go near the place, loaf around a bit, then come back and report Rupert Dunsmore out of the way for good, draw your pay and vanish, and leave us to find out he was as lively and troublesome as ever.  I don’t think you would do that, because you sounded as if you meant what you said when you told me he was your worst enemy.  But it’s just as well to be sure, and so we mean to have a witness; and as it’s what you might call a delicate matter, that witness will most likely be our employer himself.  So you had better do the job thoroughly if you want your pay.”

“I see you take your precautions,” remarked Dunn.  “Well, that’s all right, I don’t mind.”