"Look here, officer"--if you want to please a policeman always call him
"officer"--"I am going to peep into that room, and you must help me."
"Me, sir?"
"Yes, you. What are policemen for, except to help people? Now listen.
I can't, of course, get into the house, but I am going to arrange for a
ladder to be brought here to-night that will reach to the first-floor
windows. This street is, I'm sure, quite deserted in the small hours of
the morning. The ladder will be hoisted up by the men who bring it, you
will keep an eye up and down the street to see that nobody comes along
to interrupt us. Then I shall crawl up the ladder and peer in at the
window. If there is space between the boards wide enough to admit
light, the space must be wide enough to enable me to peep into the
room."
"It's a bit risky, sir."
"Risky? Not the slightest. I'll make it worth your while to undertake
what risk there is. So that is understood. You are on duty here
to-night at two o'clock?"
"Oh, yes, sir, but--"
"There is no `but.' I shall see you later, then."
I returned to King Street. My man John had a friend who worked for a
builder, he told me. This friend of his would, he said, arrange
everything, and be delighted to. Oh, yes, he had a ladder. He had
several ladders. He could bring along single-handed, a ladder the
length I wanted, and set it in position.
This was satisfactory. I went to a theatre in order to kill time, for I
felt excited and terribly impatient. I had not told Vera of my plan, or
Faulkner, or indeed anybody but the policeman.
The builder's man was punctual to the minute. He had concealed the
ladder in Crane's Court before dark, thinking suspicion might be aroused
were he to be seen carrying a ladder through the streets of London in
the middle of the night. Two o'clock had just struck, when he crept
stealthily into Belgrave Square with the ladder over his shoulder.
Acting upon my instructions, he laid it flat upon the pavement.
Impatiently I waited. A quarter-past two chimed on some far-distant
clock. Still the windows remained in darkness.
Twenty minutes passed... Twenty-five... I began to feel anxious.
Would this mysterious visitor not come to-night? That would indeed be a
bitter disappointment. Ah!
The light had appeared. It was on the first floor. Now it percolated
feebly between the boards covering two windows.
At a signal from me the man picked up the ladder, raised it to a
vertical position, then let it rest, without a sound, against the
window-sill.
"All right, sir," he whispered to me.
Restraining my excitement, I began slowly, cautiously, to creep up the
rungs.