The pair continued to speak as I came up the approach, but received me at last in a sort of goggling silence.  I had my hat in my hand.

‘I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Burchell Fenn?’ said I.

‘The same, sir,’ replied Mr. Fenn, taking off his jockey cap in answer to my civility, but with the distant look and the tardy movements of one who continues to think of something else.  ’And who may you be?’ he asked.

‘I shall tell you afterwards,’ said I.  ’Suffice it, in the meantime, that I come on business.’

He seemed to digest my answer laboriously, his mouth gaping, his little eyes never straying from my face.

‘Suffer me to point out to you, sir,’ I resumed, ’that this is a devil of a wet morning; and that the chimney corner, and possibly a glass of something hot, are clearly indicated.’

Indeed, the rain was now grown to be a deluge; the gutters of the house roared; the air was filled with the continuous, strident crash.  The stolidity of his face, on which the rain streamed, was far from reassuring me.  On the contrary, I was aware of a distinct qualm of apprehension, which was not at all lessened by a view of the driver, craning from his perch to observe us with the expression of a fascinated bird.  So we stood silent, when the prisoner again began to sneeze from the body of the cart; and at the sound, prompt as a transformation, the driver had whipped up his horses and was shambling off round the corner of the house, and Mr. Fenn, recovering his wits with a gulp, had turned to the door behind him.

‘Come in, come in, sir,’ he said.  ’I beg your pardon, sir; the lock goes a trifle hard.’

Indeed, it took him a surprising time to open the door, which was not only locked on the outside, but the lock seemed rebellious from disuse; and when at last he stood back and motioned me to enter before him, I was greeted on the threshold by that peculiar and convincing sound of the rain echoing over empty chambers.  The entrance-hall, in which I now found myself, was of a good size and good proportions; potted plants occupied the corners; the paved floor was soiled with muddy footprints and encumbered with straw; on a mahogany hall-table, which was the only furniture, a candle had been stuck and suffered to burn down—­plainly a long while ago, for the gutterings were green with mould.  My mind, under these new impressions, worked with unusual vivacity.  I was here shut off with Fenn and his hireling in a deserted house, a neglected garden, and a wood of evergreens:  the most eligible theatre for a deed of darkness.  There came to me a vision of two flagstones raised in the hall-floor, and the driver putting in the rainy afternoon over my grave, and the prospect displeased me extremely.  I felt I had carried my pleasantry as far as was safe; I must lose no time in declaring my true character, and I was even choosing the words in which I was to begin, when the hall-door was slammed-to behind me with a bang, and I turned, dropping my stick as I did so, in time—­ and not any more than time—­to save my life.