murder. The girl heard it and fainted.
She'll be all right in a minute if I can lay her down. I never thought
any woman weighed half as much. Anyway, she's coming to and that's
something--if you could call a policeman, sir."

He was a self-possessed gentleman, I must say, and, looking up and down
the street, while I set the girl down on the footboard of the car, he
espied the little messenger boy who had helped us to carry the basket
into the house and sent him for a policeman. Betsy had opened her eyes
by this time, but all she could say had no meaning for me, nor was it
any clearer to him. When we had got her across to his surgery and left
her there, we returned to the house together, and as we went I tried to
tell him just what had happened and how I came to be mixed up in such a
strange affair. The story was still half told when we mounted the
steps of Bredfield and walked straight up to the basket which had
scared the girl out of her wits and left me wondering whether I was
awake or dreaming. Now, however, I had no doubt at all about the
matter, for whoever was under that lid was struggling pretty wildly to
get free, and would have broken the cords in another minute if the
doctor had not cut them.

A couple of slashes with a lancet severed the stout rope with which my
"bundle" had been tied, and a third cut the bit of string which bound
the hasp to the wickerwork. I stepped back instinctively as the
gentleman raised the lid, and so, to be honest, did he--the same
thought, I am sure, being in both our heads and the belief that our own
lives might be in danger. When the truth was revealed, my first
impulse was to laugh aloud, my second to set off in my car without a
moment's loss of time, and try to lay by the heels the pair of villains
who had done this thing.

In a word, I may tell you that the basket contained a young girl,
apparently not more than fifteen years of age; that she was dressed in
rags, though apparently a lady of condition, and that when we lifted
her out it appeared that her reason had gone and that her young life
might shortly follow it.

I've been through some strange times in my life; had many a peep into
the next world, so to speak; seen men die quick and die slow--but for
real right-down astonishment and pity I shall never better that scene
in the Boundary Road, St. John's Wood, if I live as long as the
patriarchs.

Just picture the brightly lighted hall and the open basket, and