anywhere
about we'll see her."

Lord Torrington eyed the _Tortoise_. He would have preferred a larger
boat, but he was a man of determination and courage.

"I don't care how wet I get," he said, "so long as I have the chance of
speaking my mind to the scoundrel who has abducted my daughter."

"We'll take oilskins with us," said Sir Lucius, getting out of the trap
as he spoke.

The police sergeant approached him.

"Well, Rafferty," said Sir Lucius, "what's the matter with you?"

"Have you any fresh news of my daughter?" said Lord Torrington.

"I have not, my Lord. Barring what Professor Wilder told me I know no
more. There was a lady belonging to his party out on the bay looking out
for sponges and she came across----"

"You told us all that yesterday," said Sir Lucius. "What's the matter
with you now?"

"What they say," said the sergeant cautiously, "is that it's murder."

"Murder! Good heavens! Who's dead?"

"Timothy Sweeny," said the sergeant

"It might be worse," said Sir Lucius. "If the people of this district
have had the sense to kill Sweeny I'll have a higher opinion of them in
the future than I used to have. Who did it?"

"It's not known yet who did it," said the sergeant, "but there was two
shots fired into the house last night. There's eleven panes of glass
broken and the wall at the far side of the room is peppered with shot,
and I picked ten grains of it out of the mattress myself and four out of
the pillow, without counting what might be in Timothy Sweeny, which
the doctor is attending to. Number 5 shot it was and Sweeny is moaning
terrible. You'd hear him now if you was to step up a bit in the
direction of the house."

It would, of course, have been highly gratifying to Sir Lucius to hear
Timothy Sweeny groan, but, remembering that Lord Torrington was anxious
about his daughter, he denied himself the pleasure.

"If he's groaning as loud as you say," he said, "he can't be quite dead.
I don't believe half a charge of No. 5 shot would kill a man like Sweeny
anyway."

"If he's not dead," said the sergeant, "he's mighty near it, according
to what the doctor is just after telling me. It's likely enough that
shot would prey on a man that's as stout as Sweeny more than it might on
a spare man like you honour or me. The way the shot must have been fired
to get Sweeny after the fashion they did is from the top of the wall in
the back yard opposite the bedroom window. By the grace of God there's