Then my host turned to his desk to write a letter before the post want out; and I strolled away to smoke a cigar in the garden.
Second-floor back windows all open, atmosphere as sultry as ever, gardener's pruning-ladder quite safe in the tool-shed, savage mastiff in his kennel crunching his bones for supper.Good.The dog will not be visited again tonight: I may throw my medicated bit of beef at once into his kennel.

I acted on the idea immediately; the dog seized his piece of beef; I heard a snap, a wheeze, a choke, and a groan--and there was the mastiff disposed of, inside the kennel, where nobody could find out that he was dead till the time came for feeding him the next morning.
I went back to the doctor; we had a social glass of cold brandy-and-water together; I lighted another cigar, and took my leave.
My host being too respectable a man not to keep early country hours, I went away, as usual, about ten.

The mysterious man-servant locked the gate behind me.

I sauntered on the road back to Barkingham for about five minutes, then struck off sharp for the plantation, lighted my lantern with the help of my cigar and a brimstone match of that barbarous period, shut down the slide again, and made for the garden wall.
It was formidably high, and garnished horribly with broken bottles; but it was also old, and when I came to pick at the mortar with my screw-driver, I found it reasonably rotten with age and damp.
I removed four bricks to make footholes in different positions up the wall.

It was desperately hard and long work, easy as it may sound in description--especially when I had to hold on by the top of the wall, with my flat opera hat (as we used to call it in those days) laid, as a guard, between my hand and the glass, while I cleared a way through the sharp bottle-ends for my other hand and my knees.