n no city of the world is a crowd so quickly collected as in London; in
none is one so easily satisfied and dispersed. Within five minutes the
detectives had hurried their three captives away towards the nearest
cab-rank, and the people who had left their tea and their cakes to gather
round, to stare, and to listen had gone back to their tables to discuss
this latest excitement. But the chief and Allerdyke, Fullaway and
Appleyard, Miss Slade and Rayner stood in a little group on the grass and
looked at each other. Eventually, all looks except Rayner's centred on
Miss Slade, who, somewhat out of breath from her tussle, was settling her
hat and otherwise composing herself. And it was Miss Slade who spoke
first when the party, as a party, found itself capable of speech.

"I don't know who it was," observed Miss Slade, rather more than a little
acidly, "who came interfering in my business, but whoever he was he
nearly spoilt it."

She darted a much-displeased look at the chief, who hastened to
exculpate himself.

"Not I!" he said with a smile. "So don't blame me, Miss Slade. I was
merely a looker-on, a passive spectator--until the right moment
arrived. Do I gather that the right moment had not actually
arrived--for your purpose?"

"You do," answered Miss Slade. "It hadn't. If you had all waited a few
moments you would have had all three men in conference round one of those
tables, and they could have been taken with far less fuss and bother--and
far less danger to me. It's the greatest wonder in the world that I'm not
lying dead on that grass!"

"We are devoutly thankful that you are not," said the chief fervently.
"But--you're not! And the main thing is that the three men are in
custody, and as for interference--"

"It was Chilverton," interrupted Fullaway, who had been staring at his
mysterious secretary as if she were some rare object which he had never
seen before. "Chilverton!--all Chilverton's fault. As soon as he set eyes
on Van Koon nothing would hold him. And what I want to know--"

"We all want to know a good deal," remarked the chief, glancing
invitingly at Miss Slade. "Miss Slade has no doubt a good deal to tell. I
suggest that we walk across to those very convenient chairs which I see
over there by the shrubbery--then perhaps--"

"I want to know a good deal, too," said Miss Slade.

"I don't know who you are, to start with, and I don't know why Mr.
Appleyard happens to be here, to end with."

Appleya