It was nine o'clock before Ijima came in, dripping from his tumble in the lake and his walk home through the rain. The Italian had made no effort to molest him, he reported; but he had watched the man row out to the _Stiletto_ and climb aboard. Ijima has an unbroken record of never having asked me a question inspired by curiosity. He may inquire which shoes I want for a particular morning, but _why, where_ and _when_ are unknown in his vocabulary. He was, I knew, fairly entitled to an explanation of the incident of the afternoon, though he would ask none, and when he had changed his clothes and reported to me in the library I told him in a word that there might be further trouble, and that I should expect him to stand night watch at St. Agatha's for a while, dividing a patrol of the grounds with the gardener. His "Yes, sir," was as calm as though I had told him to lay out my dress clothes, and I went with him to look up the gardener, that the division of patrol duty might be thoroughly understood.
I gave the Scotchman a revolver and Ijima bore under his arm a repeating rifle with which he and I had diverted ourselves at times in the pleasant practice of breaking glass balls. I assigned him the water-front and told the gardener to look out for intruders from the road. These precautions taken, I rang the bell at St. Agatha's and asked for the ladies, but was relieved to learn that they had retired, for the situation would not be helped by debate, and if they were to remain at St. Agatha's it was my affair to plan the necessary defensive strategy without troubling them. And I must admit here, that at all times, from the moment I first saw Helen Holbrook with her father at Red Gate, I had every intention of shielding her to the utmost. The thought of trapping her, of catching her, _flagrante delicto_, was revolting; I had, perhaps, a notion that in some way I should be able to thwart her without showing my own hand; but this, as will appear, was not to be so easily accomplished.
I went home and read for an hour, then got into heavy shoes and set forth to reconnoiter. The chief avenue of danger lay, I imagined, across the lake, and I passed through St. Agatha's to see that my guards were about their business; then continued along a wooded bluff that rose to a considerable height above the lake. There was a winding path which the pilgrimages of school-girls in spring and autumn had worn hard, and I followed it to its crest, where there was a stone bench, established for the ease of those who wished to take their sunsets in comfort. The place commanded a fair view of the lake, and thence it was possible to see afar off any boat that approached St. Agatha's or Glenarm. The wooded bluff was cool and sweet from the rain, and a clear light was diffused by the moon as I lighted my pipe and looked out upon the lake for signs of the _Stiletto_.