this
pretty little thing with yellow hair streaming over her shoulders and
her bare arms extended as though in entreaty toward the doctor and me,
and such cries upon her lips as though we, and not the men who had sent
her here, had been her would-be murderers. I tell you that I would
have sold my home to save her, and that's no idle word. Unhappily, I
could do nothing, and what I would have done the police forbade me to
do, for there were three of them in the room before five minutes had
passed; and I might be forgiven for saying that half the local force
was present inside half an hour.

Well, you know what a policeman is when anything big turns up; how
there's a mighty fine note-book about two foot long to be produced, and
perhaps a drop of whisky and soda to whet his pencil, and then the
questions and the answers and what not--all the time the thief is
running hard down the back street and the gold watch is sticking out of
his boot.

I answered perhaps a hundred and fifty questions that night, and nobody
any the wiser for them. Notes were taken of everything: the time I set
out, where my father was born, what they paid me for the job, the
address of the garage, Christian name and surname of Abraham
Moss--whether I'd had my licence endorsed or kept it clean--until at
last, able to stand it no longer, I told the inspector plainly that
this wasn't Colney Hatch, and the sooner he understood as much the
better.

"Here's my car and there's the street," said I; "will you drive to
Richmond Road and see the house for yourself or will you not? I tell
you there were two of them, and one may be there now. You can prove it
for yourself or let it go, as you like. But don't say it wasn't talked
about or I shall know how to contradict you."

He came down to ground at this and consented to go with me. We were
back again in the Richmond Road inside a quarter of an hour and
knocking at the door of the house where I had picked the basket up
about two minutes later. A very old woman opened to us this time, and
answered very civilly that the two strange gentlemen had left for the
Continent by the evening train, and she had no idea if they would
return or no. They had always paid her regularly, she said, though not
often at home; while as for their room, we could examine that with
pleasure. The more amazing confession came after, for when she was
pressed to tell us something about the young lady, she declared stoutly
that