His intention, I found, was to examine the carpet outside of the dressing-room door, and the floor beneath it, to discover if possible whether Arthur Wells had fallen there and been moved.

“Because I think you are right,” he said.  “He wouldn’t have been likely to shoot himself in a hall, and because the very moving of the body would be in itself suspicious.  Then I want to look at the curtains.  ‘The curtains would have been safer.’  Safer for what?  For the bag with the letters, probably, for she followed that with the talk about Hawkins.  He’d got them, and somebody was afraid he had.”

“Just where does Hawkins come in, Sperry?” I asked.

“I’m damned if I know,” he reflected.  “We may learn tonight.”

The Wells house was dark and forbidding.  We walked past it once, as an officer was making his rounds in leisurely fashion, swinging his night-stick in circles.  But on our return the street was empty, and we turned in at the side entry.

I led the way with comparative familiarity.  It was, you will remember, my third similar excursion.  With Sperry behind me I felt confident.

“In case the door is locked, I have a few skeleton keys,” said Sperry.

We had reached the end of the narrow passage, and emerged into the square of brick and grass that lay behind the house.  While the night was clear, the place lay in comparative darkness.  Sperry stumbled over something, and muttered to himself.

The rear porch lay in deep shadow.  We went up the steps together.  Then Sperry stopped, and I advanced to the doorway.  It was locked.

With my hand on the door-knob, I turned to Sperry.  He was struggling violently with a dark figure, and even as I turned they went over with a crash and rolled together down the steps.  Only one of them rose.

I was terrified.  I confess it.  It was impossible to see whether it was Sperry or his assailant.  If it was Sperry who lay in a heap on the ground, I felt that I was lost.  I could not escape.  The way was blocked, and behind me the door, to which I now turned frantically, was a barrier I could not move.

Then, out of the darkness behind me, came Sperry’s familiar, booming bass.  “I’ve knocked him out, I’m afraid.  Got a match, Horace?”

Much shaken, I went down the steps and gave Sperry a wooden toothpick, under the impression that it was a match.  That rectified, we bent over the figure on the bricks.

“Knocked out, for sure,” said Sperry, “but I think it’s not serious.  A watchman, I suppose.  Poor devil, we’ll have to get him into the house.”

The lock gave way to manipulation at last, and the door swung open.  There came to us the heavy odor of all closed houses, a combination of carpets, cooked food, and floor wax.  My nerves, now taxed to their utmost, fairly shrank from it, but Sperry was cool.

He bore the brunt of the weight as we carried the watchman in, holding him with his arms dangling, helpless and rather pathetic.  Sperry glanced around.