Why? Because I
wanted to draw a red herring across the trail!--I wanted, for the time
being, to set up a theory that some man or other had found that book in
the omnibus, had called in at Multenius's to sell or pawn it, had found
the old man alone, and had assaulted and robbed him. All this was with a
view to hoodwinking the Chinaman. Anything must be done, anything!--to
keep him ignorant that Purvis and I knew the real truth.
"But--what did we intend to do? I tell you, not being aware that old
Daniel Multenius had met his death by violence, we did not give one
second's thought to that aspect and side of the affair--we concentrated on
the recovery of our property. I knew the house in which these Chinese
lived. That evening, Purvis and I went there. We have both been
accustomed, in our time, to various secret dealings and manoeuvres, and we
entered the grounds of that house without any one being the wiser. It did
not take long to convince us that the house was empty. It remained empty
that night--Purvis kept guard over it, in an outhouse in the garden. No
one either entered or left it between our going to it and Purvis coming
away from it next morning--he stayed there, watching until it was time to
keep an appointment with me in Hyde Park.
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