Silver whispered to me to come into the bedroom and leave them to sort it out. We sat on the bed while I told him all about my encounter with Max and Selina and he, eventually, drew my attention back to what Wim had seen through the dormer window. It was natural enough, in the light of what had been happening, that I had almost forgotten it. Silver asked me if I had any ideas. What, for instance, were we going to do about it, if anything?

“I’d like to see for myself,” I said.

Silver had asked Wim for precise directions and he had been down Torrington Gardens himself this morning to locate the house. The fifth window on the top floor from Peterborough Avenue was in the second house from the end, there being three dormers on this level to each house. A balcony ran along this floor just below the dormers where the mansard ended and it was bordered by a low parapet of bottle-shaped pillars. If hanging upside down on the mansard was beyond our powers, we could walk along this balcony. The house was of dark gray brickwork with cream facings and red bricks in a Greek key pattern running along just below the parapet and again between the bay windows on the ground floor and the sash windows on the floor above. It would be easy to slip down onto the balcony from the roof.

This particular house, 4 Torrington Gardens, was divided like its neighbors into five flats. Silver had gone up the path into the porch and read the names beside the row of bells. The top bell and the one below it were for Flats D and E, both apparently occupied by someone named Robinson. No style or initials, just Robinson. Some people called Nyland lived in Flat C and an S. Francis on the ground floor.

“If it’s them,” I said, “what are we going to do? Anything?”

“Let’s make sure first.”

“Yes, but are we going to creep up on them or—well, boldly reveal ourselves?”

“We’re on the side of the hunted, not the hunter, aren’t we?” Silver said and I nodded. “So is being on their side giving them up or keeping them hidden? I suppose it’s keeping them hidden, because they could give themselves up if they wanted to. Anyway, it’s wrong to do good to people against their will.”