He was more used to office work than action; and it was fully five
seconds before he started for the wood. In those five seconds
Pollyooly had gone a good thirty yards into it. He rushed for the post
and rails, and climbed them with his eyes nearly starting out of his
head in his anxiety to see her. Then, instead of trying to hear in
which direction she was moving, he stood on the fence and bellowed to
the detective to come to him.

The detective, tired by his night watch, was slow in grasping what had
happened. By the time he had reached the lawyer, had learned that
Pollyooly had taken to the woods, and was himself over the fence, many
valuable seconds had been lost; and Pollyooly, who had turned sharply
to the left, was sixty yards down the wood, moving noiselessly, out of
hearing.

She threaded the mazes of the wood swiftly, with straining ears,
marking the loud rustling of her pursuers in the undergrowth. It grew
fainter and fainter, for they plunged on straight ahead of them; and
then it died quite away. She went on slowly, enjoying the wood, the
fragrance of the flowers, and the song of the birds in the sun-flecked
glades.

About twenty minutes later she heard again the rustling of her
pursuers, faint and far away, but drawing nearer. She moved along
before it, and came to a gate opening into a leafy lane. Below, about
a mile away, lay the town of Budleigh Salterton, and the sea, shining
in the sun.

She climbed on to the gate to get a better view (she had time enough),
her active brain working swiftly. She perceived that there were even
pleasanter ways of spending a summer's day in Devonshire than playing
hide-and-seek in a wood with a lawyer and a detective. Then she cast
one look back into the green depths of the wood, slipped over the gate,
and bolted down the lane as hard as she could run. Her only task had
been to keep the lawyer and the detective busy during the morning; and
she thought that the wood might be trusted to keep them busy without
any help from her. Eight minutes later she arrived, panting, in the
High Street of the town, slowed down, and strolled to the beach.

But the lawyer and the detective ranged the wood like questing hounds.

As she came on to the esplanade a very large gentleman in grey flannel
was so impressed by her flower-like, angel face that, without pausing
to cast about for an introduction, he entered into conversation with
her. She was very affable with him,