“What’s he want now?” he demanded, almost as if Julian ought to know! “I fixed everything up with him the other day. Everything. Each of us three has his own part to do. Mine’s the least important, as it happens — and his is the most important. He took all the papers away with him, he can’t have left any behind. Coming down in the middle of the night like this — quite extraordinary!”

None of the children except Dick meant to stay awake and listen for the American’s coming. Dick put on his bed-light and took up a book to read. He knew he would fall asleep and not wake up for any noise, if he didn’t somehow keep himself wide-awake!

He listened as he read, his ear alert to hear the coming of any car. Eleven o’clock came — then midnight struck. He listened to the twelve dongs from the big grandfather clock in the hall. Goodness — Uncle Quentin wouldn’t be at all pleased that his visitor was so late!

He yawned, and turned over his page. He read on and on. Half-past twelve. One o’clock. Then he thought he heard a sound downstairs and opened his door. Yes — it was Uncle Quentin in his study. Dick could hear his voice.

“Poor old Aunt Fanny must be up too,” he thought. “I can hear their voices. Gosh, I shall soon fall asleep over my book. I’ll slip down and out into the garden for a breath of fresh air. I shall keep awake then.”

He put on his dressing-gown and went quietly down the stairs. He undid the bolt of the garden door and slipped out. He stood listening for a moment, wondering if he would hear the roar of the American’s car in the stillness of the night.

But all he heard was the sound of the tyres of a bicycle on the road outside. A bicycle! Who was riding about at this time of night? Perhaps it was the village policeman?

Dick stood in the shadows and watched. A man was on the bicycle. Dick could just make him out dimly, a big black shadow in the star-lit night. To the boy’s enormous surprise, he heard the sound of the man dismounting, then the swish of the leaves in the hedge as the bicycle was slung there.

Then someone came quietly up the path and went round to the window of the study. It was the only room in the house that was lighted. Dick heard a tapping on the window, and then it was opened cautiously. His uncle’s head appeared.

“Who is it?” he said, in a low tone. “Is it you, Elbur?”

It apparently was. Dick saw that it was the big American who had visited his uncle two days before. “I’ll open the door,” said his aunt, but Elbur was already putting his leg across the window-sill!

Dick went back to bed, puzzled. How strange! Why should the American come so secretly in the night, why should he ride a bicycle instead of driving his car? He fell asleep still wondering.