“What man?” asked Brian, starting.  “Oh,” he went on indifferently, as the watcher moved away from the gate and crossed the road on to the footpath, “he’s taken up with the music, I suppose; that’s all.”

Madge said nothing, but she could not help thinking there was more in it than the music.  Presently Julia ceased, and she proposed to go in.

“Why?” asked Brian, who was lying back in a comfortable seat, smoking a cigarette.  “It’s nice enough here.”

“I must attend to my guests,” she answered, rising.  “You stop here and finish your cigarette,” and with a gay laugh she flitted into the house.

Brian sat and smoked, staring out into the moonlight the while.  Yes, the man was certainly watching the house, for he sat on one of the seats, and kept his eyes fixed on the brilliantly-lighted windows.  Brian threw away his cigarette and shivered slightly.

“Could anyone have seen me?” he muttered, rising uneasily.

“Pshaw! of course not; and the cabman would never recognise me again.  Curse Whyte, I wish I’d never set eyes upon him.”

He gave one glance at the dark figure on the seat, and then, with a shiver, passed into the warm, well-lighted room.  He did not feel easy in his mind, and he would have felt still less so had he known that the man on the seat was one of the cleverest of the Melbourne detectives.

Mr. Gorby had been watching the Frettlby mansion the whole evening, and was getting rather annoyed.  Moreland did not know where Fitzgerald lived, and as that was one of the primary facts the detective wished to ascertain, he determined to watch Brian’s movements, and to trace him home.

“If he’s the lover of that pretty girl, I’ll wait till he leaves the house,” argued Mr. Gorby to himself, as he took his seat on the Esplanade.  “He won’t long remain away from her, and once he leaves the house it will be no difficult matter to find out where he lives.”

When Brian made his appearance early in the evening, on his way to Mark Frettlby’s mansion, he wore evening dress, a light overcoat, and a soft hat.

“Well, I’m dashed!” ejaculated Mr. Gorby, when he saw Fitzgerald disappear; “if he isn’t a fool I don’t know who is, to go about in the very clothes he wore when he polished Whyte off, and think he won’t be recognised.  Melbourne ain’t Paris or London, that he can afford to be so careless, and when I put the darbies on him he will be astonished.  Ah, well,” he went on, lighting his pipe and taking a seat on the Esplanade, “I suppose I’ll have to wait here till he comes out.”

Mr. Gorby’s patience was pretty severely tried, for hour after hour passed, and no one appeared.  He smoked several pipes, and watched the people strolling along in the soft silver moonlight.  A bevy of girls passed by with their arms round one another’s waists.  Then a young man and woman, evidently lovers, came walking along.  They sat down by Mr. Gorby and looked hard at him, to hint that he need not stay.  But the detective took no heed of them, and kept his eyes steadily upon the great house opposite.  Finally, the lovers took themselves off with a very bad grace.