n the contrary. That, in part at
least, was the cause of my undoing.

The hall ended in a big French window that opened out on to the back
verandah. It was very seldom used, indeed I had never seen it opened,
but there it was with glass all the way to the floor. When I marched my
prisoner down the hall I had some vague idea of taking him out on to the
verandah and inducing him to tell me what he had come for. But the man
had other plans maturing, and when we were just about six or seven feet
away from the window he gave a little twist and a wriggle and slipped
out of my hands as if he had been an eel. Then, before I had quite
recovered sufficiently to make a grab at the empty air, he hurled
himself against the window. It was one of those foolhardy things that
succeed just because of the sheer, daring recklessness of the man who
carries them through. He swept through the glass with a splintering
crash that must have been audible for half-a-block away, and then, while
the falling pieces still tinkled on the floor, he placed his hand on the
verandah rail and vaulted to the ground. I drew my revolver at once--I
had been pulling it out of my pocket even as I ran down the hall--and
took a flying shot at him. But in the hurry of the moment I missed, and
I padded out on to the verandah through the splintered window just in
time to see him scaling the back fence with the practised ease of the
family tabby.

I did not attempt to follow him. I knew the uselessness of such a
proceeding. Just for the fraction of a second his hurrying silhouette
had shown on the top of the fence, and then it had melted into the
surrounding shadows of the dawn with a silence and celerity which, more
than anything else, told me how difficult it would be to trace him.

I turned on my heel, only to find that the lights were blazing up in
practically every room, and Moira, Bryce and the servants were gathered
in a huddled, indecisive group just inside the window. Most of them
looked startled. Bryce had been a little shaken, but his self-possession
was rapidly returning. Moira, indeed, was the only one who faced me with
anything like calmness in her face.

"You'd better all get back to bed," I said, seeing that someone had to
take the initiative. "It's nothing very much, nothing to worry you at
any rate."

"Yes, you'd better go back," Bryce said, seconding my remarks. "There's
nothing doing."

The servants moved away one by one, leaving the three of