Is anything wrong?"

"I think there is," said Deede Dawson softly. "I think, perhaps,
there is. What are you doing out here at this time of night,
Charley Wright?"

"I heard a noise and came down to see what it was," answered Dunn.
"There was a light in the breakfast-room, but I didn't see any one,
and the front door was open so I came out here. Is anything wrong?"

"That's what I want to know," said Deede Dawson. "Come back to the
house with me. If any one is about, he can just take himself off."

He spoke the last sentence loudly, and Dunn took it as a veiled
instruction to his companion to depart.

He realized that if he had saved Clive he had done so at the cost
of missing the best opportunity that had yet come his way of
obtaining very important, and, perhaps, decisive information.

To have discovered the identity of this stranger who had come
visiting Deede Dawson might have meant much, and he told himself
angrily that Clive's safety had certainly not been worth purchasing
at the cost of such a lost chance, though he supposed that was a
point on which Clive himself might possibly entertain a different
opinion.

But now there was nothing for it but to go quietly back to the
house, for clearly Deede Dawson's suspicions were aroused and he
had his revolver ready in his hand.