Narkom fetched a deep breath of relief at this news, tucked the card into his pocket, and got out immediately. "Hang round the neighbourhood somewhere and keep your ears open in case I should have to give the signal sooner than I anticipate," he said; then twisted round on his heel, turned into the tree-bordered lane, and bore down in the direction of the river. When still short, by thirty yards or so, of its flowered and willow-fringed brim, he came upon a quaint little diamond-paned, red-roofed, low-eaved house set far back from the shore, with a garden full of violets and primroses and flaunting crocuses in front of it, and a tangle of blossoming things crowding what once had been a bower-bordered bowling green in the rear. "Queen Anne, for a ducat!" he commented as he looked at the place and took in every detail from the magpie in the old pointed-topped wicker cage hanging from a nail beside the doorway to the rudely carved figure of a mermaid over the jutting, flower-filled diamond-paned window of the bar parlour with its swinging sashes and its oak-beam sill, shoulder high from the green, sweet-smelling earth. "How the dickens does he ferret out these places, I wonder? And what fool has put his money into a show like this in these days of advancement and enterprise? Buried away from the line of traffic ashore and shut in by trees from the river. Gad! they can't do a pound's worth of business in a month at an out-of-the-way roost like this!" Certainly, they were not doing much of it that day; for, as he passed through the taproom, he caught a glimpse of the landlady dozing in a deep chair by the window, and of the back of a by-no-means-smartly-dressed barmaid--who might have been stone deaf for all notice she took of his entrance--standing on a stool behind the bar dusting and polishing the woodwork of the shelves. The door of the bar parlour was open, and through it Narkom caught a glimpse of a bent-kneed, stoop-shouldered, doddering old man shuffling about, filling match-boxes, wiping ash trays, and carefully refolding the rumpled newspapers that lay on the centre table. That he was not the proprietor, merely a waiter, the towel over his arm, the shabby old dress coat, the baggy-kneed trousers would have been evidence enough without that added by the humble tasks he was performing. "Poor devil! And at his age!" said Narkom to himself, as he noted the pale, hopeless-looking, time-worn face and the shuffling, time-bent body; then, moved by a sense of keen pity, he walked into the room and spoke gently to him. "Tea for two, uncle--at a quarter-past five to the tick if you can manage it," he said, tossing the old man a shilling. "And say to the landlady that I'd like to have exclusive use of this room for an hour or two, so she can charge the loss to my account if she has to turn any other customers away."