It had many conveniences; among the rest a very long though narrow garden inclosed within high walls.  At the end of the garden was a door which anybody could open from the inside, but from the outside only by a Bramah key.

The access to this part of the premises was by a short, narrow lane, very dirty and very little used, because, whatever might have been in old times, it led now from nowhere to nowhere.  Meadows received by this entrance one or two persons whom he never allowed to desecrate his knocker.  At the head of these furtive visitors was Peter Crawley, attorney-at-law, a gentleman who every New Year’s Eve used to say to himself with a look of gratified amazement—­“Another year gone, and I not struck off the Rolls!!!”

Peter had a Bramah key intrusted to him.

His visits to Mr. Meadows were conducted thus:  he opened the garden-gate and looked up at the window in a certain passage.  This passage was not accessible to the servants, and the window with its blinds was a signal-book.

Blinds up, Mr. Meadows out.

White blind down, Mr. Meadows in.

Blue blind down, Mr. Meadows in, but not alone.

The same key that opened the garden-door opened a door at the back of the house which led direct to the passage above-mentioned.  On the window-seat lay a peculiar whistle constructed to imitate the whining of a dog.  Then Meadows would go to his book-shelves, which lined one side of the room, and pressing a hidden spring open a door that nobody ever suspected, for the books came along with it.  To provide for every contingency, there was a small secret opening in another part of the shelves by which Meadows could shoot unobserved a note or the like into the passage, and so give Crawley instructions without dismissing a visitor, if he had one.

Meadows provided against surprise and discovery.  His study had double doors.  Neither of them could be opened from the outside.  His visitors or servants must rap with an iron knocker; and while Meadows went to open, the secret visitor stepped into the passage and shut the books behind him.

It was a room that looked business.  One side was almost papered with ordnance maps of this and an adjoining county.  Pigeon-holes abounded, too, and there was a desk six feet long, chock full of little drawers—­contents indicated outside in letters of which the proprietor knew the meaning, not I.

Between the door and the fireplace was a screen, on which, in place of idle pictures, might be seen his plans and calculations as a land surveyor, especially those that happened to be at present in operation or under consideration.  So he kept his business before his eye, on the chance of a good idea striking him at a leisure moment.

“Will Fielding’s acceptance falls due to-morrow, Crawley.”

“Yes, sir, what shall I do?”

“Present it; he is not ready for it, I know.

“Well, sir; what next?”