About eight o’clock we drove to a little restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne, dined quietly, and about nine set out on foot to walk to the villa. There was a brief lull in the storm, but very soon the rain fell again heavily, and as, of course, we took no umbrellas, we were soon wet to the skin.

Making sure that we were not followed, we approached the garden cautiously through the wood, the rain falling in torrents. At the edge of the forest, near a well known fountain, beyond the house, we met by appointment my man, Alphonse. He was dressed as an old woman and had an empty basket on his arm. Together we moved through the wood and shrubbery until we were opposite the side of the garden and about a hundred feet from where the wall turned at a right angle.

Here, facing an avenue, the wall was broken midway by the arch of the entrance gateway. The wind blew toward us, and we could hear now and then the sound of voices.

Alphonse said: “Two; there are two at the gate.”

“Hush,” said I, as a man came around the angle and along the narrow way between us and the garden wall.

“Wait, monsieur; he will come again.” In some ten minutes he reappeared, as before.

“Now,” said Merton, and in a pour of wildly driven rain Alphonse disappeared. He found his way through the wood and in to the main avenue, which in front of the gate turned to the left and passed around the farther side of the grounds. Then he walked up to the gate. Before long we heard words of complaint. Would the guards tell her—This was all gleefully related afterward. She had lost her way. Yes, a little glass of absinthe—only one. She was not used to it. And she had the money for her market sales, and alas! so she was all wrong and must go back. The guards laughed. No doubt it was the absinthe. The old woman was reeling now and then. Wouldn’t one of them show her the way? No. And was it down the avenue? Yes. With this she set off unsteadily along the road to the left. They called out that it was the wrong way, and then, laughing, dismissed her.

When once around the remote angle of the wall, Alphonse slipped aside into the forest, got rid of gown and basket, and moving through the wood, took up his station on the side of the main avenue of approach to the villa, and out of sight of the guards. Here he waited until a few minutes later he was joined by the captain.

Meanwhile I stood in the wood with Merton. I think he enjoyed it. I did not. A first attempt at burglary is not in all its aspects heroic, and I was wet, chilled, and anxious.

“First actor on,” murmured Merton. “Should like to have seen that interview. Can’t be actor and audience both.”

I hazily reflected that for myself I was both, and that the actor had just then a sharp fit of stage-scare. I let him run on unanswered, while the rain poured down my back.

At last he said: “I think Alphonse has had time enough.”

“Hardly,” said I. I did not want to talk. I was longing to do something—to begin. The punctual guard went by twenty feet away, the smoke of his pipe blown toward us.

“I never liked pipe-smoking on the picket-line,” said Merton. “You can smell it of a damp night at any distance. Remind me to tell you a story about it. Heavens!” he cried, as a flash of lightning for an instant set everything in noon-day clearness, “I hope we shall not have much of that. Keep down, Greville. Ever steal apples? Strike that repeater.” I did so. “It’s a good deal like waiting for the word to charge. I remember that once we labeled ourselves for recognition in case we did not come out alive. Just after that I fell ill.”

“Hush!” I said. “There he is again.”

“All right; give him a moment,” said Merton, “and now you have a full half-hour. Come.”

We crossed the narrow road and stood below the garden wall. He gave me the aid of his bent knee and then his shoulder, and I was at once lying flat on the garden wall. My repeater rang 10:15, and then, as I lay, I heard voices. This time there were two men. They paused on the road just below me to light cigarettes. One of them consigned the weather to a place where it might have proved more agreeable. The other said Jean had a pleasanter station in the house. This was not very reassuring news, but I was in for it and wildly eager to be through with a perilous adventure.

As they disappeared, I dropped from the wall into the garden and fell with an alarming crash, rolling over on a pile of flower-pots. There was such a clatter as on any quiet night must have been surely heard. For a moment I lay still, and then, hearing no signals of alarm, I rose and groped along the wall to the door of the conservatory. It was not locked. Pausing on the step outside for a moment, I took off my shoes and secured them by tying them to a belt I wore for this purpose. Then I went in. I found the door of the house ajar, and entering, knew that I was in the drawing-room. I moved with care, in the gloom, through the furniture, and, aided by a flash of lightning, found my way into the hall. Before me, to left, across the hall, was a small room. The door was open. I smelled very vile pipe-smoke and heard footfalls overhead, but no sound of voices. I became at once hopeful that I should have to deal with but one man. I opened cautiously a window in the little room and sat down to listen and wait. I had been given a half-hour. My repeater at last struck 10:45. Meanwhile the clouds broke in places, and there were now gleams of unwelcome moonlight and now gusts of wind-driven rain.

I rose and shut to a crack the door of the room and waited. Beyond the wall, to my right, I heard of a sudden a wild shriek of “Murder! murder! Help! help!” shrill, feminine, convincing. Then came a pistol-shot, then another, and in a moment a third more remote, and, far away, the cries of men.

My time had come. That the gate guards would make for the direction of the sound we had felt sure, but what would happen in regard to the house guard was left to chance. At all events, he would be isolated for a time. To my relief, the ruse answered. I shut the window noiselessly as I heard my host running down the stairway.

He opened the hall door in haste and was dimly seen from my window hurrying toward the gate. I rushed into the hall, bolted the hall door, and ran up-stairs. The old nurse had been prepared for my coming and met me on the first landing.

“Quick,” I said. “You expected me. The boudoir.” She had her good Yankee wits about her, and in a minute I was kneeling, wildly anxious, and groping in the ashes. Thrusting the package of paper within my shirt-bosom, I ran down-stairs, and as she came after, I cried that I had locked the hall door, and to unlock it when I was gone. “Be quick,” I added, “and lock the conservatory door behind me. No one has been seen by you. Go to your own room.” Pausing to put on my shoes, I fled across the garden, neither hearing nor seeing the guard who must have joined his fellows outside.