Then Scaife seemed to
have penetrated to the back door of the house, pretending he was
an agent for sewing-machines. Only three servants were kept, a
cook, a parlour-maid, and a housemaid, and they were just the sort
that you would find in a respectable middle-class household. The
cook was not the gossiping kind, and had pretty soon shut the door
in his face, but Scaife said he was positive she knew nothing. Next
door there was a new house building which would give good cover
for observation, and the villa on the other side was to let, and its
garden was rough and shrubby.
I borrowed Scaife's telescope, and before lunch went for a walk
along the Ruff. I kept well behind the rows of villas, and found a
good observation point on the edge of the golf-course. There I had
a view of the line of turf along the cliff top, with seats placed at
intervals, and the little square plots, railed in and planted with
bushes, whence the staircases descended to the beach. I saw Trafalgar
Lodge very plainly, a red-brick villa with a veranda, a tennis
lawn behind, and in front the ordinary seaside flower-garden full of
marguerites and scraggy geraniums. There was a flagstaff from
which an enormous Union Jack hung limply in the still air.
Presently I observed someone leave the house and saunter along
the cliff. When I got my glasses on him I saw it was an old man,
wearing white flannel trousers, a blue serge jacket, and a straw hat.
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