Larose was very troubled, as, late that afternoon, he sat alone in his room and gave himself up to his thoughts.

He was intending to make his way to the house upon the marsh as soon as darkness fell, and determine once and for all if the man who had been crouching under the hedge that morning were indeed the same one who had come up behind him that night when he had fired upon the pursuing car.

And now in the interval of waiting, he was trying to sum up exactly what his position was, and if he had really made any progress at all, and discovered anything since he had arrived at the Abbey three days ago.

His eyebrows puckered in perplexity. He had so many tangled skeins to unravel, and in whichsoever direction his thoughts travelled, they were soon, so very soon, brought up against a dead wall.

He had been all along so sure, as he had put it almost brutally to Lady Ardane, that her arch enemy must be among those five people who had been her close intimates at the time of the attempt to kidnap her little boy.

Yes, he had been so sure of that, even before he had come to the Abbey, and nothing he had found out since had shaken him in that idea.

One by one, he now went over the possible five men again, and he frowned and shook his head many times.

He had nothing really definite against any of them.

There were certainly some things that he did not like about Sir Parry Bardell, but it was inconceivable that a man who was as devoted to Lady Ardane, as undoubtedly the knight was, whatever might be his motive, would hire desperadoes to go shooting at her car and expose her to all the risks of a terrible accident.

Still, he was suspicious about Sir Parry, for, in the light of what the woman Dilling had told him, he could not help thinking that there was some motive behind the invitation to partake of the royal shandy that morning. Of course, Sir Parry had seen him through the telescope as he, Larose, was coming over the marshes, and he had gone purposely to intercept him at that stile.

Then he had brought him up to his house in a very secretive sort of way and had kept on looking back as if he were desirous of ascertaining if anyone were seeing them together. They had come in by the back door, too, because the path by the front door was muddy. And yet the mud by the back door was as bad as any he had been in that morning, with all his long walk. Yes, Sir Parry’s conduct had been very peculiar.

Then the matter of the ‘stone-deaf’ housekeeper came in, and there was undoubtedly something very funny there. She did not seem a bad lot, and he rather thought she was of the kind to be trusted. She was certainly friendly disposed towards him, and had been giving him a warning right enough. Then when he had pressed her for an explanation, she had become frightened, and made up that clever lie about the asylum to save herself. Well, he would go and see her again tomorrow. She had asked him to come and see her again, and that looked as if she were wavering and half-inclined to unburden herself of some secret that she held.

Then next there was Senator Harvey — and somehow he did not like the man. But it was inconceivable again there, that the Senator would conspire against Lady Ardane. Still, some mania might have seized him and he could not be overlooked, for there was the matter of his having been out in the wood at night to be explained, and his meeting with the other man. There was no doubt the housekeeper had been speaking the truth there.

Then what about Admiral Charters? Certainly he was not of the type of man to be a conspirator, and yet — under that hearty and buff exterior might lurk a man of very evil mind. In the annals of dark crime there were records beyond number of deceiving appearances such as that.

It was all very puzzling.

Ah! but he was forgetting Sir Arnold Medway and Lord Wonnock, and leaving them out of his calculations altogether! Now, could he be making a mistake about them? Was it conceivable that Sir Arnold could be associated with a gang of desperadoes? He, a man of seemingly unimpeachable character, and a most distinguished member of a great profession.

Impossible! Impossible! — but yet, again, history had recorded many such instances.

Then there was Lord Wonnock! Lord Wonnock, stodgy, unimaginative, a worshipper of tradition, and whose whole obsession, it seemed, was to so live his life so that it would add dignity and prestige to the ruling classes!

No, Lord Wonnock was certainly impossible.

But dusk had passed and the darkness of the night was falling upon the countryside.

The detective let himself out of the cloister door, pausing, however, as he always did, to take a frowning glance at those well-oiled hinges.

It was a dark night, fine and clear, and the moon had not yet risen.

Larose had made some little alteration in his appearance, and, an adept in disguise, he flattered himself it would take more than a cursory look from any of those he had been brought in contact with since his arrival at the Abbey, for them to determine who he was, from a chance encounter under artificial light.

But if he could help it, he did not intend to be seen by anybody, although he was not coming back, he told himself, without having passed the ‘once over’ upon the inmates of the stone house. If he could not get sight of them through any of the windows, then he was going to knock boldly at the door and make out that he had lost his way.

He was sure it would be quite safe, for if they were indeed members of the gang, and being warned about him, had been given a description of his appearance, they would never recognise in the moustached and heavily-eyebrowed visitor, the clean-shaven and well-trimmed detective of Scotland Yard.

He crossed diagonally to the low fence and climbed over it, then making sure he was not being followed, he took the bitumen for about a mile until he was well beyond the marsh road. Then he turned off across the meadows, and keeping all the time close to the hedge side, after a rather muddy walk saw the outlines of the stone house close at hand, silhouetted against the sky.

Making a detour, the back of the house came into view, and he saw lights shining out of both the windows, and, rather to his astonishment, a large beam of light also from the door, which was half-open.

He crept up to within twenty yards, with only a tall hedge now separating him from the little garden, and then, the door opening wider, he saw two men standing just within the threshold. They were talking earnestly together.

Then one of them came out, and the light falling upon his face, the detective gave a gasp of amazement as he saw the man was Sir Arnold Medway.

There was not the slightest doubt about it. Sir Arnold had got his overcoat well buttoned up and his cap was pulled down well upon his eyes, but there was no mistaking that fine profile, the Grecian nose and the good, firm chin.

But if he had had any doubts they would have at once been dispelled, for, in the act of his turning away, the cultured voice of the great surgeon came up clearly and distinctly.

“Well, don’t you forget. I tell you he wants looking after.”

The man in the doorway called back. “All right. We’ll keep on the lookout,” and then, continuing to hold the door wide open until Sir Arnold had passed through the little gate and gained the marsh road, he closed it and the garden was in darkness again.

It was difficult for Larose to determine what were his exact feelings at the moment.

Amazement, disappointment, doubt and fierce rage surged in quick succession through him.

“If they are only honest men here,” he panted, “then the explanation of his visit will no doubt turn out to be a very simple one, but if I find out they belong to the gang, then, good God!”— he almost choked in his rage —“I have allowed myself to be hoodwinked like the silliest little servant girl.” His face puckered up in his distress. “But fancy! Sir Arnold, about the last man in the world one would have suspected to be associated with criminals! Fancy! Such a gentleman and ——” But he pulled himself up sharply. “Gilbert, Gilbert, you’re a fool. Get to business and find out the facts and then abuse anybody you like afterwards.”

For a moment he was inclined to follow after Sir Arnold and demand an explanation straightaway, but he speedily thought better of it.

“No,” he told himself, “I’ve got to learn about these men, and now’s the chance, when it’s any odds they’ll be discussing what Sir Arnold has just been telling them, and won’t be on the lookout for another visitor so soon.”

He bent down to push through where the hedge was very thin, and then, without the slightest warning, received a stunning blow upon the head from someone who had been in waiting upon the other side.

With a deep groan he crashed to the ground, and then, before he lost consciousness altogether, was dimly aware that he received a second blow, also upon his head.

He remembered nothing more for a long time, and it might have been hours and hours before his senses began finally to come back. Then his return to sight and hearing was hastened by the pain of someone plucking roughly at his eyebrows.

“And his moustache, too,” he heard a voice say, “and then we’ll wash his face.”

More pain followed, and then he felt water being splashed over him and, finally, he was rubbed hard with a cloth.

“Exactly!” he heard someone say, “and he’s not only that darned Larose, but he’s the farm laborer as well who came up to us on the road the other night. The devil!” and he felt his face stung with a contemptuous flick of the wet cloth.

He opened his eyes dully, and far quicker than the two men who were watching him imagined, acquired a grasp of the situation.

He was in a low room, lighted by a single paraffin lamp upon a table, and lying upon a sofa on the other side of the room, opposite to a small window. There was no blind to the window, but a newspaper was pinned across it. His ankles were tied tightly and his arms were pinioned to his sides by a rope that cut cruelly into his wrists. He felt very sick, and, moistening his dry lips, he tasted the salt of his own blood. He had a terrible pain in his head and felt very thirsty. He saw two faces bending over him.

He shut his eyes and groaned.

“Wake up, wake up,” came a soft and bantering, but not unkind, voice. “Don’t you want to talk to us, Mr. Gilbert Larose, farm-laborer employed by Mr. Andrews at Willow Bend?”

He opened his eyes again with an effort, and they fell at once upon the square-jawed man of his dreams, but he sensed instinctively that it was not he who had just been speaking.

“Come, come, you’re not dead — yet,” came from the soft voice again, and the detective was in such pain and distress that a marked interval between the uttering of the last two words occasioned him no apprehension at all.

“Something to drink, please,” he said weakly, looking up at the man who had spoken, “I’m very thirsty.”

“Give him a tot of brandy, Luke,” said the man with the soft voice, turning at once to his companion.

“Waste of spirit!” was the surly comment of the latter, who made no move to comply with the request.

“Never mind that,” said the first speaker peremptorily. “It’ll be his last drink, poor devil, and you hit him darned hard. Here, pass over the bottle and I’ll give it him myself,” and in a few moments the detective was receiving a generous draught of the fiery spirit.

“Feel better, eh?” asked the donor. “Well now, you can talk or not, just as you want to. We’re not anxious. We know all about you and there’s nothing more we want to find out.”

And then, seeing that either he could not, or would not, enter into any conversation, they moved away and left him alone. Seating themselves at the table, they then proceed to talk earnestly in low voices, every word, however, of what they said, being perfectly audible to the detective.

He learnt very soon, as he had fully expected, that he was going to be put to death. His captors made no secret of it, discussing in a most business like way their arrangements for accomplishing it.

Henrik was out in his boat, laying his nets about a mile off-shore, but the tide was such that he would be back very soon, for to escape the labor of much hauling, they knew he always returned upon a flowing tide. Then directly his keel had touched the sand, according to his invariable custom, he would proceed with all haste to his hut to get very drunk, and they would then, unknown to him, borrow his boat.

They would then attach part of a derelict plough, that was close handy, to their prisoner, and pushing out to sea, drop him overboard, about a quarter of a mile away.

It was all going to be very simple.

“And you are lucky, Mr. Larose,” smiled the soft-voiced young man, noting that the detective was taking in what they were discussing, “that our friend Roy isn’t here. He would have cut your throat as a preliminary, but we are more tender-hearted and are just going to let you drown.” He laughed as if it were a good joke. “Besides, we want no messes here.”

He was quite a pleasant-looking man, this young fellow with the soft voice, for he had curly hair, a good profile and a humorous mouth. Indeed, it was only his eyes that were not nice, and they were hard and steely.

The detective uttered another groan, but this time it was mental as well as physical, for he had now recognised in this soft-voiced man, his whispering cross-examiner upon the night when he had driven from Norwich with Lady Ardane.

Their arrangements completed, the conversation of the two men died down. The square-jawed man smoked stolidly, but his companion, evidently of a more restless nature, kept on going outside every other minute or so, to ascertain if there were any sign yet of the fisherman.

“Put out the lamp,” he said sharply after one of these excursions. “There’s light enough from the fire, and then I can pull off that paper,” and the lamp being extinguished, he stripped the window bare.

“Not a glimpse of his lantern yet,” he said looking through, “and it may be half an hour before he comes.” He cast his eyes back upon the recumbent form on the sofa. “But we’re quite safe however long he is, for it’s notorious that this chap always works alone.”

He walked over and looked down upon the detective. “Vanity, my friend,” he said with his pleasant smile, “has always been your besetting sin, and now you’re paying for it. In all your work you’ve always wanted all the credit, and you never would take in a pal.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So now, to-night, the wages of your sin — is death.”

He was silent for a few moments, with his eyes still fixed intently upon Larose. “Not going to speak, eh?” he went on. “Still stubborn!” He nodded. “But you’re a brave man, and know it’s no good crying out.” He sighed and turned away. “I’m sorry for you.”

And surely the hardest heart would have experienced some feeling of compassion for the detective then.

He was not a pleasant sight. Muddied and bloodied, glistening with sweat, and limp as if every bone in his body were broken, he looked in the very last stages of exhaustion. His face, ghastly white except where the blood was clotted on his brow, had already assumed the leaden hues of death, and his breathing was faint and very shallow.

But his physical distress, so apparent to the eye, was as nothing to the mental distress that his captors could not see, indeed, so overwhelming was the depression of his thoughts that he was almost unmindful of his exhaustion and his pain.

He was in the lowest depths of humiliation, and no remorse could have been more deep than was his.

He had failed, and failed just as he had been upon the very point of success, and it was his pride that had been his undoing. He had known that he was in the midst of enemies, yet he had taken no precautions, and just allowed himself to be trapped, like the veriest booby, without striking a blow.

And others would suffer by his folly. That was the bitter thought.

But it was all over now and in a few short minutes he would be dead. Never again would he thrill to the trail of ............