In a few minutes he saw the door in the wall open. One of the men slipped out and looked up and down. He apparently signaled that the coast was clear, and soon the others followed him. They came down the lane, walking very slowly--a weird and uncanny little procession. Arnold caught a glimpse of them as they passed. The two larger men were supporting their fallen companion between them, each with an arm under his armpits, so that the fact that he was really being carried was barely noticeable. Isaac came behind, his hands thrust deep into his overcoat pocket, a cloth cap drawn over his features. So they went on to the end of the lane. As soon as they had reached it, Arnold followed them swiftly. When he gained the street, they were about twenty yards to the right, looking around them. It was a fairly populous neighborhood, with a row of villas on the other side of the road, and a few shops lower down. They stood there, having carefully chosen a place remote from the gas lamps, until at last a taxicab came crawling by. They hailed it, and Isaac engaged the driver's attention apparently with some complicated direction, while the others lifted their burden into the taxicab. One man got in with him. Isaac and the other, with ordinary good-nights, strode away. The taxicab turned around and headed westward. Arnold, with a long breath, watched them all disappear. Then he, too, turned homewards. It was almost midnight when Arnold was shown once more into the presence of Sabatini. Sabatini, in a black velvet smoking jacket, was lying upon a sofa in his library, with a recently published edition _de luxe_ of Alfred de Musset's poems upon his knee. He looked up with some surprise at Arnold's entrance. "Why, it is my strenuous young friend again!" he declared. "Have you brought me a message from Fenella?" Arnold shook his head. "She does not know that I have come." "You have brought me some news on your own account, then?" "I have brought you some news," Arnold admitted. Sabatini looked at him critically. "You look terrified," he remarked. "What have you been doing? Help yourself to a drink. You'll find everything on the sideboard there." Arnold laid down his hat and mixed himself a whiskey and soda. He drank it off before he spoke. "Count Sabatini," he said, turning round, "I suppose you are used to all this excitement. A man's life or death is little to you. I have never seen a dead man before to-night. It has upset me." "Naturally, naturally," Sabatini said, tolerantly. "I remember the first man I killed--it was in a fair fight, too, but it sickened me. But what have you been doing, my young friend, to see dead men? Have you, too, been joining the army of plunderers?" Arnold shook his head. "I took your sister home," he announced. "We found a light in her sitting-room and the door locked. I got in through the window."