ly half a minute
nothing happened; then the portly form of Sergeant Wrannock emerged.

"Wrannock!" gasped the inspector from Lowestoft. The sergeant forgot
to salute his superior officer. He was humiliated. His collar was
torn, one eye was blackened, and his nose was swollen.

Closely following him came Sir Charles Custance and Mr. Greenhales, who
between them supported the inert form of Mr. Gandy, wheezing pitifully.
All were much battered. Sir Charles's face was covered with blood, Mr.
Greenhales had lost his wig and his false teeth, whilst Mr. Gandy had
lost the power to move.

"What in heaven's name is the meaning of this?" asked the inspector.

"It means," thundered Sir Charles, who was the first to find his voice,
"that we have been brutally and murderously assaulted by a band of
ruffians."

"That's me, and me only!" commented the foreman complacently. "I'm the
band, cockie, and don't you forget it."

"It means," said Sergeant Wrannock, "that having information that this
house was packed with firearms, I came to make investigation and----"

"Got caught, cockie," interrupted the foreman.

"Hold your tongue!" shouted Mr. Greenhales, in a hollow, toothless
voice, dancing with fury. "Hold your tongue! You shall suffer for
this."

At last, from the incoherent shoutings and reproaches in which the
words "Germans," "Spies," "Herr Mueller," were bandied back and forth,
Mr. Miller and the inspector pieced together the story of how four
patriots had been overcome by one foreman pantechnicon-man. The
inspector turned to Mr. Miller.

"As a matter of form, sir, and in the execution of my duty, I should be
glad to know if it is true that your house is full of arms and
ammunition?" he asked politely.

"Of arms, certainly, Inspector, most certainly," Mr. Miller replied.
"I am supposed to have the finest collection of firearms in the
country. Come and see them, or such as are unpacked."

And the inspector looked at Sergeant Wrannock, and the plain-clothes
constables looked away from him, and Sir Charles and Mr. Greenhales
looked irefully round for Bindle; but Bindle was nowhere to be seen.

"Funny none of 'em seem to see the joke!" he remarked to a clump of
rhododendrons half-way down the drive.

CHAPTER XVII

BINDLE MAKES A MISTAKE

I

"Bindle there?"

"No, sir; 'e's down the yard."

"Tell him I want him."

"Right, sir."

The manager of the West London Furniture Depository, Ltd., retu