“I’ll stick on till I get a wire—­,” he said.  “Then I’ll come back and we’ll reverse again.”  He slipped on the coat and moved back towards the table.  Now that the decisive moment had come, it embarrassed him.

Scarcely knowing how to bring it to an end, he held out his hand.

Chilcote took it, paling a little. “’Twill be all right!” he said, with a sudden return of nervousness. “’Twill be all right!  And I’ve made it plain about—­about the remuneration?  A hundred a week—­besides all expenses.”

Loder smiled again.  “My pay?  Oh yes, you’ve made it clear as day.  Shall we say good-night now?”

“Yes.  Good-night.”

There was a strange, distant note in Chilcote’s voice, but the other did not pretend to hear it.  He pressed the hand he was holding, though the cold dampness of it repelled him.

“Good-night,” he said again.

“Good-night.”

They stood for a moment, awkwardly looking at each other, then Loder quietly disengaged his hand, crossed the room, and passed through the door.

Chilcote, left standing alone in the middle of the room, listened while the last sound of the other’s footsteps was audible on the uncarpeted stairs; then, with a furtive, hurried gesture, he caught up the green-shaded lamp and passed into Loder’s bedroom.

VIII

To all men come portentous moments, difficult moments, triumphant moments.  Loder had had his examples of all three, but no moment in his career ever equalled in strangeness of sensation that in which, dressed in another man’s clothes, he fitted the latchkey for the first time into the door of the other man’s house.

The act was quietly done.  The key fitted the lock smoothly and his fingers turned it without hesitation, though his heart, usually extremely steady, beat sharply for a second.  The hall loomed massive and sombre despite the modernity of electric lights.  It was darkly and expensively decorated in black and brown; a frieze of wrought bronze, representing peacocks with outspread tails, ornamented the walls; the banisters were of heavy iron-work, and the somewhat formidable fireplace was of the same dark metal.

Loder looked about him, then advanced, his heart again beating quickly as his hand touched the cold banister and he began his ascent of the stairs.  But at each step his confidence strengthened, his feet became more firm; until, at the head of the stairs, as if to disprove his assurance, his pulses played him false once more, this time to a more serious tune.  From the farther end of a well-lighted corridor a maid was coming straight in his direction.

For one short second all things seemed to whiz about him; the certainty of detection overpowered his mind.  The indisputable knowledge that he was John Loder and no other, despite all armor of effrontery and dress, so dominated him that all other considerations shrank before it.  It wanted but one word, one simple word of denunciation, and the whole scheme was shattered.  In the dismay of the moment, he almost wished that the word might be spoken and the suspense ended.