but violent change, broke
in, "So Alexander's humbugged me, has he? He's brought me all the way
from Paris here by a lie about Jesuits having tried to bury this young
lady in one of their nasty convents, to do his dirty kidnapping work,
has he? I'll kidnap him! I'll teach him to play these tricks on me!"

"Do!" said Tinker with warm approval. "You let him have it! Think
that you're pitching into me like you used to! Come along, all of you!
Selina's simply tremendous when her back's up!"

Selina opened the door, and went down the stairs with all the outraged
majesty of a Boadicea. The three of them followed her quietly, and at
the bottom Tinker bade Dorothy and Elsie unbar the door of the house
and himself kept close behind Selina. She opened the door of the room;
and at the sight of her the sustained shriek in which the Italian and
the Frenchman were conversing died suddenly down, and the three
kidnappers stared at her.

"You nasty, body-snatching scum!" said Selina, glowering at them.

"Eh! What? You're daft, woman! What's the matter?" said McNeill.

"Don't you woman me, Alexander McNeill!" said Selina. "Daft, am I?
Daft to listen to your lies about Jesuits and the young lady! Daft to
believe you when you told me not to listen to her, for the Jesuits had
got round her, and she didn't know what was good for her! But I've
found you out! I'm going to take the young lady straight back to her
father, and send the police here for you."

"Woman, you're mad!" said McNeill, rising with a scared face.

"Don't you woman me, you low Scotchman! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself, mixing yourself up with these foreign rascals! You that's
had a Christian up-bringing!"

"You do what you're paid to do!" roared McNeill.

"Il faut agir!" said the Frenchman, with the true Napoleonic grasp of
the situation, and he bounced in a lithe, over-confident manner at
Selina.

In a flash she had her left hand well gripped in his abundant hair, and
was clawing his face with her right. He screamed and writhed; and the
struggle gave Tinker his chance. He slipped the key out of the inside
of the door, thrust it into the outside; as the Frenchman tore himself
away yelling, he cried, "Outside, Selina!" strengthened the command by
a strong drag on her arm; got her outside; slammed to the door, and
locked it almost before the kidnappers had realised that he was there.
He wrenched the key out of the lock just as Dorothy had got