and at a
secret entrance she used to enter as Mrs. Herne." He knocked again,
but there was no reply. Finally Jennings grew exasperated and tried to
open the door. It was locked. "I believe she is escaping," he said,
"help me, Mallow."

The two men put their shoulders to the door and burst it in. When they
entered the bedroom it was empty. There was no sign of Maraquito
anywhere, and no sign, either, of how she had managed to evade the law.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SECRET ENTRANCE

AS may be guessed, Jennings was very vexed that Maraquito had escaped.
He had posted his men at the front and back doors and also at the side
entrance through which Senora Gredos in her disguise as Mrs. Herne had
entered. He never considered for the moment that so clever a woman
might have some way of escape other than he had guessed. "Yet I might
have thought it," he said, when Cuthbert and he left the house. "I
expect that place is like a rabbit-burrow. Maraquito always expected
to be taken some day in spite of her clever assumption of helplessness.
That was a smart dodge."

"How did you learn that she was shamming?"

"I only guessed so. I had no proof. But when I interviewed the pseudo
Mrs. Herne at her Hampstead lodgings, she betrayed so much emotion when
speaking of you that I guessed it was the woman herself. I only tried
that experiment to see if she was really ill. If she had not moved I
should have been done."

"It seems to me that you are done now," said Cuthbert angrily. He was
not very pleased at the use Jennings had made of him.

"By no means. Maraquito will take refuge in a place I know of. She
does not fancy I am aware of its existence. But I am on my way there
now. You can come also if you like."

"No," said Mallow decisively, "so far as I am concerned, I have no
further interest in these matters. I told you so the other day."

"Don't you wish to know who killed Miss Loach?"

Mallow hesitated, and wondered how much the detective knew. "Have you
any clue to the assassin?" he asked.

Jennings shrugged his shoulders. "I can't say that. But I suspect the
coiners have something to do with the matter."

"The coiners?"

"Ah! I know you have not learned much about them. I have no time now
to talk, but you will see everything in the papers shortly. I can tell
you, Mallow, there's going to be a row."

Mallow, like all young Englishmen, was fond of fighting, and his blood
was at once afire to j