Back through the village street, with eyes looking this time neither to the right nor to the left, through the lodge gates, where his hand sought the brim of his hat in mechanical salute to the curtseying doorkeeper, along the winding avenue, and through the iron gates up to the great front of the Hall, Henry Ballaston passed on his return journey and finally reached his destination. He entered the cool, lofty hall, handed his hat and gloves to the footman who was waiting, and hesitated for a moment. The door of the library was unexpectedly opened. Sir Bertram strolled out as though by accident.
"Well, my dutiful brother?" he asked, his tone, though apparently careless, betraying an underlying anxiety.
Henry waited until he had reached his brother's side.
"The man appears to be perfectly harmless," he confided. "He will take lunch with us to-morrow."
"Good!" Sir Bertram approved. "I shall go and change now. I am going to have a few sets of tennis with Gregory."
Henry Ballaston crossed the hall and, passing through the library, entered the smaller room which had been devoted to his use. Gregory in flannels and with a tennis racket under his arm, was apparently engaged in examining one of the catalogues. He turned around as his uncle entered.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "You back already!"
"My call I thought was of suitable length," was the measured rejoinder.
"What sort of a fellow is this new tenant of ours?" Gregory demanded.
His uncle paused for a moment. Gregory's fingers were nervously tapping the vellum-bound manuscript which he held.
"A very ordinary sort of person," he pronounced, "who appears to have found his way here entirely by accident."
Gregory replaced on the shelf the catalogue which he had been studying. He failed to notice that he had been holding the volume upside down.
"Good of you to do the duty stunt, Uncle Henry," he observed.
"It has always been one of my few obligations," was the quiet reply. "Mr. Johnson is lunching with us to-morrow."
"I sha'n't go over to Cromer until the afternoon then," Gregory announced. "One may as well be civil, and I have rather a fancy to see what the fellow is like."
At half-past twelve on the following morning Mr. Peter Johnson, dressed in a blue serge suit and patent shoes--a costume which, after much deliberation, he deemed suitable for the enterprise on which he was bent--mounted his two-seated car, drove through the village, exchanging polite greetings with one or two of his recent acquaintances, and, after a moment's wait at the lodge gates, proceeded at a subdued pace along the winding road which crossed the park and up through the great avenue to the front entrance of the Hall. He left his automobile in a secluded place and found the door open as he mounted the steps. Rawson, unrecognising, stony of face and feature, took his name. A footman relieved him of his hat and gloves. Another subordinate, lurking in the background, threw open the door of the library, into which the visitor was ushered.