"What makes you think so?" inquired Ronald.
"I don't like the looks of the gentleman for one thing," replied Mr. Rivers, "and for the second thing I don't like the little I've found out about him since I've been here. But that's running ahead of my story. I'll get back to the London part of it, and make a finish of that. I suppose that is necessary, for my employer has written to me to put myself into your hands entirely, and to tell you everything I know. Well, in London a remarkable thing happened. There's a house in Lamb's Terrace--79's the number--that is almost as lonely as any house round about us now. On the first day I shadowed Mr. Nisbet he paid three visits to Lamb's Terrace, and it was as much as I could do to keep myself out of his sight. I succeeded, though, because I was on my guard, and he never set eyes on me. The first visit he paid he did nothing more than reconnoiter; I put a reason to that. There happened to be an old man poking about the ground there for bits of rags and bones, and Mr. Nisbet didn't seem to relish his company. So, after reconnoitering ten or fifteen minutes, and as the old ragpicker didn't seem as if he was going to leave in a hurry, Mr. Nisbet cut his lucky, and walked out of the neighborhood. On his second visit there was no one in sight, and Mr. Nisbet, looking carefully around, took a key from his pocket, and let himself in. He remained in the house half an hour by my watch, and he came out with a bundle. There was something suspicious in that, I thought, but it was not my business to inquire into it. My instructions were clear, and I couldn't go beyond them. Besides, what call had I to tap the gentleman on the shoulder and say, 'I'll trouble you to tell me what you have under your arm?' I should only have got myself in trouble, because our concern is a private one, and we haven't got the law to back us up. He took the bundle with him to the Métropole and left it there. He paid his third visit to Lamb's Terrace in the night, and this time he didn't go into the house. He didn't go to the front at all, but made his way to the back, and scrambled over the wall. He kept in the garden there, which is just choked up with weeds, for a precious long time, and all he did was to look up at the windows. I thought his going into an empty house in daylight and bringing out a bundle was queer, but I thought this last move a good deal queerer, for he kept quite still, and never took his eyes off the windows. When he'd had his fill he scrambled back over the wall and came away. From there he went straight to Theobald Row, South Lambeth, and knocked at the door of a chemist's shop kept by a doctor. The name over the shop window was Cooper. He stayed there an hour, and then returned to the Métropole. On the morning we left London I hadn't the ghost of an idea that he intended to start for Paris, and I followed him out of the Métropole to St. George's Hospital, outside of which he met the gentleman who has traveled with him to this place. I watched them pretty narrowly when we were on the steamer, but I didn't venture into the same carriage with them when we traveled by rail. On the steamer and in Paris, and wherever I could keep my eyes on them, they seemed pretty thick, and I fancied once or twice that they didn't quite agree with each other. Whenever they talked it was away from people, and I knew that it was not accidental that they should always choose spots where they couldn't be overheard. On those occasions I wouldn't risk discovery by going near them, but watched them from a distance, and once or twice I saw Mr. Nisbet look at his companion in a way that made me think, 'I shouldn't like to meet you on a dark road, my friend, and for you to know that I was shadowing you.' There was a cold glitter in his eyes which might easily mean murder, and that is what makes me say again to you, gentlemen, that we shall have to be very careful in what we do in this part of the world."