Then in doubling to avoid this danger he had dimly sighted Mr Bickers himself, taking a starlight walk on Railsford's side of the square.

Finally, in his last bolt home, he had encountered Railsford stalking moodily under the shadow of his own house, and too preoccupied to notice, still less to challenge, the truant.
All this Arthur remembered now, and, carrying his mind a day or two further back, he recalled Mr Bickers's uninvited visit to the house-- Arthur had painful cause to remember it--and Railsford's evident resentment of the intrusion, and the threatenings of slaughter which had been bandied about between the two houses ever since.
"Why," said Arthur to himself, "it's as clear as a pikestaff.

I see it all now.

Bickers said it was about a quarter to ten when he was collared.

No fellows would be about then, and certainly no one would know that he would be passing our door, except Marky.