is of the loud dispute among the confederates in
the library, the noise of which had effectually covered the sound
of the departing ear.

Francis laughed.

"From my observation post outside," he said, "I could only see
you, Des, and that blackguard, Mug, as you two were sitting
opposite the window. I couldn't see more than the feet of the
others. But your face told me the loud voices which reached me
even outside meant that a crisis of some sort was approaching, so
I thought it was time to be up and doing. So I sneaked round to
the front of the house, got the engine of the car going and
started off down the drive.

"I had the very devil of a job to get to Stanning. Ever since
you've been down here, the Chief has had special men on duty day
and night at the police-station there. I didn't dare stop to
light the head-lamps and as a result the first thing I did was to
charge the front gate and get the back wheel so thoroughly jammed
that it took me the best part of twenty minutes to get the
blooming car clear. When at last I got to the station, I found
that Matthews, the Chief's man, you know, had just arrived by car
from London with a lot of plain-clothes men and some military
police. He was in the very devil of a stew. He told me that
Bellward had escaped, that the Chief was out of town for the
night and ungetatable, and that he (Matthews) had come down on
his own to prevent the gaff being blown on you and also to
recapture Mr. Bellward if he should be mad enough to make for his
old quarters.

"I told Matthews of the situation up at the Mill House. Neither
of us was able to understand why you had not telephoned for
assistance--we only discovered later that the telephone had been
disconnected--but I went bail that you were up against a very
stiff proposition. I told Matthews that, by surrounding the
house, we might capture the whole gang.

"Matthews is a cautious cuss and he wanted a good deal of
persuading, so we lost a lot of time. In the end, he wouldn't
take my advice to rush every available man to the scene, but only
consented to take two plainclothes men and two military police.
He was so precious afraid of upsetting your arrangements. The
Chief, it appears, had warned everybody against doing that. So we
all piled into the car and I drove them back to the Mill House.

"This time I left the car at the front gate and we went up to the
house on foot. We had arranged that Matthews and one of the
military polic