"I'll tell you," he answered, as we all three took chairs round the fire, and I stirred it into a blaze. "On the Wednesday I did not go out at all; I told you I should not. On the Thursday, after dusk, I went out to meet you, Charley. It was early, and I strolled in for a smoke with Lee and a chat with Miss Betsy. The old man began at once: 'Captain Strange, Policeman Wren has been here, asking questions about you.' It seems old Wren is well known in the neighbourhood----" "Captain Strange?" cried Lake. "Who is Captain Strange?" "I am--down there," laughed Tom. "Don't interrupt, please. 'What questions?' I said to Lee. 'Oh, what your name was, and where you came from, and if I had known you long, and what your ship was called,' answered Lee. 'And you told him?' I asked. 'Well, I should have told him, but for Betsy,' he said. 'Betsy spoke up, saying you were a sailor-gentleman that came in to buy tobacco and newspapers; and that was all he got out of us, not your name, captain, or anything. As Betsy said to me afterwards, it was not our place to answer questions about Captain Strange: if the policeman wanted to know anything, let him apply to the captain himself. Which I thought good sense,' concluded Lee. As it was." "Well, Tom?" "Well, I thought it about time to go straight home again," said Tom; "and that's why I did not meet you, Charley. And the next day, Friday, I cleared out of my diggings in that quarter of the globe, rigged myself out afresh, and found other lodgings. I am nearer to you now, Charley: vegetating in the wilds over Blackfriars Bridge." "How could you be so imprudent as to come here to-night? or to be seen in so conspicuous a spot as the Strand?" "The fit took me to pay you a visit, old fellow. As to the Strand--it is a fine thoroughfare, you know, and I had not set eyes on it since last summer. I walked up and down a bit, listening to the church bells, and looking about me." "You turn everything into ridicule, Tom." "Better that, Charley, than into sighing and groaning." "How did you know that Leah would open the door to you? Watts might have done so." "I had it all cut-and-dried. 'Is Mrs. Brown at home?' I should have said, in a voice Watts would never have known. 'Mrs. Brown don't live here,' old Watts would have answered; upon which I should have politely begged his pardon and walked off." "All very fine, Tom, and you may think yourself amazingly clever; but as sure as you are living, you will run these risks once too often." "Not I. Didn't I give old Leah a scare! You should have heard her shriek." "Suppose it had been some enemy--some stickler for law and justice--that I had brought home with me to-night, instead of Lake?" "But it wasn't," laughed Tom. "It was Lake himself. And I guess he is as safe as you are." "Be sure of that," added Lake. "But what do you think of doing, Heriot? You cannot hide away for ever in the wilds of Blackfriars. _I_ would not answer for your safety there for a day."