The morning of the day but one following upon the confidential talk between Larose and Sir Arnold Medway, a little after nine o’clock the two set out in the latter’s car to visit the house upon the marsh, where but a few nights previously the detective had lain, awaiting death.

At least, the detective was going to visit the house, and Sir Arnold, with the excuse that he was wanting to see how the fisherman’s hand was getting on, was driving him there.

Larose was still weak, and the pallor of his countenance was evidence of the sickness he had passed through, but mentally he was very much on the alert, and considered himself now quite well enough to start upon the trail of the abductors of Lady Ardane.

According to his usual custom, he was going to try to pick it up where the kidnappers had last lived, for it was one of his most profound convictions that no one could reside anywhere, if only for a few weeks, without imposing something of his individuality upon his habitation, and by the evidence of his habits and mode of life that he had left behind him, suggest to a reasoning observer something of where he might have gone, if he had been forced to suddenly fly away.

At his request, Sir Arnold dropped him at the dip in the road about a hundred and fifty yards distant from the back of the house, and reminding him that he would be waiting for him upon the sands, whenever he was ready to return, drove off in the direction of Henrik’s hut.

With an unpleasant beating of his heart, Larose walked over to the exact spot by the hedge where he had been struck down that night.

“Yes,” he reflected ruefully, “it almost seems as if that charming Sir Parry had informed them where, if I followed his directions, I should be pushing through, and I walked into a regular booby trap in consequence.” He shook his head sadly. “Really, Gilbert, you are a great ass sometimes.”

He had brought some tools with him to force the lock of the door, but to his surprise upon approaching it, found that the door was not only unlocked, but was actually standing ajar.

He pushed it wide open and at once stepped into the room that held such dreadful memories for him.

Then, to his annoyance, he saw that it was not unoccupied, for a man was seated there in an armchair. The man was quite motionless, and except that his attitude was one of profound meditation, it might almost have been thought he was asleep. Coming out of the bright sunlight, for the moment, the detective could not form any idea of his face.

Hearing the footsteps of the detective, the man looked up sharply and uttered a phlegmatic “Ah!” Then a deep voice came from the depths of the armchair. “So, you’ve come, have you, a week late?”— and Larose almost jumped out of his skin, for the voice was that of the great investigator, Naughton Jones.

“Yes,” went on Jones coldly, “like myself”— his voice took a mournful tone —“you are a week too late.”

Larose repressed the astonishment that he felt, and seating himself down in another chair, replied quietly and as if it were quite the natural thing that they should meet. “Yes, unhappily, if you have only just come, Mr. Jones, we are both a week late, but I have been ill, too, and this is the first day I have been allowed out.” Then, perceiving that Jones himself looked pale and thin, he added quickly —“But ought you to have come here, Mr. Jones! Ought you to have left the nursing home so soon?”

The great, investigator looked scornful. “Mr. Larose,” he replied in icy tones, “such men as I do not go into nursing homes, except as a prelude to their immediate decease, and I have paid no visit to any such place in all my life.”

“But you said you were going into one,” exclaimed Larose looking very mystified, “and ——”

“Never mind what I said,” broke in Jones sharply, “I have never been near one.” His voice became almost angry. “When I told you twelve days ago that I was intending to seek the seclusion of a nursing institute, as a man of intelligence, you should have regarded it as a polite way of my informing you that I did not desire to be cross-examined about my future movements.” He looked very stern. “I wished it to appear to everyone that I had retired from the case, so that with me out of the way, the rascals we were after would be less upon their guard than if they knew I was upon the spot.” He spoke hurriedly, as if he were quite aware that he was skating upon thin ice. “But I may tell you now, sir, that I have never left the case, and the whole time have never been three miles distant from the Abbey.”

A wave of furious resentment that he had been so deceived surged through Larose, and he was upon the point of giving speech to his anger when something in the wan and drawn face of Jones made him pause. The man had been ill, he was sure, and deserved pity as much as blame. Besides, he told himself, there was nothing to be gained by quarrelling, for Jones was a most efficient colleague, and with all his pompous manners, was always worth listening to.

So he just choked down his indignation and said very quietly. “Then you know everything that has happened?”

“Everything,” replied Jones majestically. “There were two persons in the secret at the Abbey who kept me well informed. Lady Ardane and Polkinghorne.”

“Lady Ardane!” exclaimed Larose, “then it was you she went to meet that night, when I caught her by the fence?”

“Exactly!” replied Jones carelessly. He frowned. “And I was a spectator of the scene when you laid hands upon her. I caught sight of you just before you seized her, and it was fortunate for you that I recognised you.” He spoke very sternly. “I may tell you, young man, that with all your escapes, you have never been nearer death than you were at that moment. I had covered you with my revolver and was steadying my finger upon the trigger, when you moved and the moon shone upon your face, between the trees. It was a near thing and — ah!” He seemed suddenly to remember something and went on dryly. “Yes, and in my opinion you retained her in your arms much longer than was necessary. You must have seen who she was directly you looked under her cap, and, besides, that scent she uses is always unmistakable.”

Larose turned the subject at once. “But where have you been, Mr. Jones,” he asked quickly, “and what has made you look so ill?”

“What has made me look so ill?” snorted Jones angrily. “Why association with a drunken sot who leaves broken bottles about, all round his hut, and who, when I fell over some oars that he had left in the doorway and stunned myself and almost bled to death from a gash that involved the radial artery, was too intoxicated to be able to go for help for more than twelve hours!” His voice vibrated angrily. “That, sir, is why, today, I am weak and ill, notwithstanding the skill and care of a gentleman who in his time has incised the cuticles of kings and princes.” But then suddenly his whole expression changed, and stretching out his hands he gave a hoarse chuckle and croaked, “Bacco, bacco, me not mooch Inglish.”

Larose gasped incredulously. “Mr. Jones!” he exclaimed, “then you have been Henrik! and all along ——”

“Not at all, not at all,” replied Jones testily. “Thank heaven, I am not that beast. There have been two Henriks, I may inform you, and I have passed as the real Henrik only when it was necessary. My suspicions were aroused about these men here and I started to watch them. Fortunately, I happen to speak Danish, and continual and copious supplies of rum succeeded in buying Henrik, body and soul.” He shrugged his shoulders resignedly. “So, for an unpleasant period of time, I shared with him, his hut, his vermin, and in order that our effluvias might not differ too greatly, a certain portion of his rum.”

“Then it was you who saved my life here!” said Larose breathlessly.

“Of course, of course,” snapped Jones, looking intensely disagreeable, “and I may tell you, sir, that I was not too pleased to have to do it, for it upset all my plans.”

His icy tones and haughty air completely cut short the expressions of gratitude that were rising to the detective’s lips, and for the moment he felt like a child who had been slapped in the face.

“Yes,” went on Jones carelessly, and as if the matter were of small account, “when I saw that they had got you and gathered, from my position under the window, something of what their intentions were, I went and kindled some straw under the breakwater yonder, feeling sure that the light would bring them out.” He lit a cigarette. “It might interest you — they must have thought you had somehow managed to effect your own deliverance, for they searched over a wide area of ground around the house, before they became really apprehensive and finally bolted with great haste away.”

“But why didn’t you shoot them, Mr. Jones?” asked Larose sharply. “You have just mentioned that you possess a revolver.”

Naughton Jones smiled sarcastically. “Because, Mr. Larose,” he replied, “I have a greater regard for the sanctity of human life than you have and do not shoot indiscriminately. Also,” he added as an afterthought, “that drunken brute had been playing with my revolver and emptied the cartridges out of it, where I could not find them in the dark.” He shook his head. “It was a near shave for me, too, and I had to hide under the heaps of sacks that constitute Henrik’s bed for longer than an hour.” He sighed. “In consequence I am still inconvenienced by the insect bites that I received during my sojourn there.”

Larose looked very puzzled. “But it was Henrik who sold the fish to Lady Ardane that afternoon,” he said, “and whose hand Sir Arnold bound up!”

“Certainly!” replied Jones.

“Henrik sold the fish and went into his hut to get the bag to put them in, but it was I who brought them out.”

“And you warned me against the airman,” frowned Larose. “How do you know he had been smuggling dope?”

“Because Henrik recognised him,” replied Jones. “Daller was flying over here one night a couple of months or so ago, and had trouble with his engines and had to come down upon these sands. Then before he attempted to find out what was wrong with them, he rushed into the sandhills and buried a number of packets beneath the sands. Then, having very quickly rectified whatever was wrong with his engine, he retrieved the packets in great haste and dumped them back into his plane and flew away.” The great investigator put up his hand to suppress a yawn. “It was therefore obvious to me that, being forced down and unaware if he would be able to get up again, his first thought had been to dispose of whatever he was carrying, so that in the event of any prolonged stay, and the authorities appearing to make enquiries about his landing in an unauthorised place, nothing of an incriminating nature would have been found upon him.”

“And Henrik watched all this?” asked Larose.

“Yes, it happened to be one of the rare occasions upon which he was sober,” replied Jones, “and he was quite close among the sand-grass all the time. He avers he saw Daller’s face distinctly, and it even struck him as peculiar that the airman should devote quite half an hour to burying his parcels, before attempting to remedy the trouble in his plane, which, later, occupied only a very few minutes.” Jones nodded emphatically. “This Henrik is quite an intelligent man when sober and not half the fool people imagine him to be.”

“But why, Mr. Jones,” asked Larose sharply, “have you kept me in the dark about your movements all this time? You could have been of great service, if I had only been aware that you were here.”

Naughton Jones flicked the ashes from his cigarette. “We are rivals, Mr. Larose,” he said coldly, “and it is always my preference, as you are well aware, to work alone. Besides”— and his eyes glinted sternly —“you do many things of which I do not approve. Why, for instance, did you kill that man they called Luke? You had disabled him already and we might have got some information out of him if you had inflicted no further punishment.”

For the second time that morning Larose was inclined to tell Jones what was in his mind, but for the second time he thought better of it. After all, he told himself, Jones was still a sick man, with all the irritability of a peevish sufferer. So he patiently related all that had happened that night after Jones had carried him away from the stone house.

Then he asked, “But how is it, if you have been laid up all this time, that you knew I had shot the man?”

Jones elevated his eyebrows. “I had been seeing Sir Arnold,” he replied, “at least once every day, and he, mentioning to me where the body had been found, I was at once certain it was your handiwork, for it was in that direction that I had started you upon your return home.” He frowned angrily. “But you know, Mr. Larose, I am not pleased with you. You have muddled up everything.”

“Well, Mr. Jones,” said Larose slowly, “I have been unfortunate and ——”

“You have been more than unfortunate,” broke in Jones quickly. “You have shown poor judgment as well. Firstly, you seriously inconvenienced me, when that afternoon you were out here in the sandhills when that car arrived. I had been waiting for it for a week, and you took so long over it in the shed, that a bare five minutes was left for me, and I had no time to see all I wanted.” He nodded. “Of course, it was you who took off those valve-cap covers! I thought so. Well, it was most unwise, for, from the absence of mud upon the valve-caps, if he had happened to look, the man would have seen that the covers had only just been taken off and then naturally”— he scowled —“he would at once have suspected me.”

“But I did not know you were here, Mr. Jones,” began Larose, “and you did wrong in not telling me. If I had known ——”

“Then the second occasion,” broke in Jones rudely, “when your actions were those of a raw country policeman was when you allowed yourself to get caught here that night. I was an eye witness of the whole happening, and you just pushed through the hedge, taking no thought as to who might be waiting for you on the other side.” He scoffed. “‘I’m Gilbert Larose,’ I suppose you told yourself, ‘and I’m quite safe, because no one can plot or plan to do anything, except me.’”

The insolence of the great investigator was so studied that Larose could hardly suppress his rage, but he had always been so furious with himself about his carelessness that night that he did not now trouble to argue in defence.

Jones went on. “And what was the result?” He shook one long forefinger angrily. “You stampeded these men just at the very moment when I wanted them most, for I had learned they were keeping up a close personal contact with someone inside the Abbey, and upon the next occasion when either of them went out at night, I was intending to follow him and learn who the traitor was.”

“But how do you know they were in touch with someone in the Abbey?” asked Larose, his curiosity now quite over-mastering his anger.

Jones punctuated every word with his finger. “On the day that you arrived, Sir Arnold advised Admiral Charters to use Ferrier’s snuff to clear up a cold in the head. Two days later the man, Luke, was employing the identical remedy here. On the Saturday the Abbey party had its first pheasant shoot of the season, and the same night they were plucking pheasants in the kitchen of this house.” He snapped his fingers contemptuously. “As Henrik I have often been in here with my fish, for, sufficiently filthy in my person and attire, and with my artificial teeth in my pocket, I am not unlike him in appearance.”

“Then can it be the Admiral they have been meeting,” asked Larose incredulously, “and it was he who gave them the snuff?” He nodded. “I caught him once, about to signal to someone with his handkerchief, from the belfry tower.”

“Tut! tut!” scoffed Jones irritably. “It’s a woman he’s after, a farmer’s wife not half a mile from here. He’s continually calling at her farm for glasses of milk, and he takes her expensive boxes of chocolates. The old fool! It’s the joke of the village, and the woman only tolerates him because of his chocolates.”

Larose bit his lip in disgust. This Jones was like a child in his vanity, and yet he had so often, in a few quiet words, made him, Larose, feel as if he were a baby in arms.

Jones sat up straight in his chair and regarded the detective intently. “Well, although I prefer, as I have told you, to work alone, up to a certain point you are welcome to the benefit of any discoveries I have made. I am quite aware that your stay at the Abbey has not been of much profit”— he laughed disagreeably —“except that you have learnt something of the troubles of a breeder of Persian cats.”

Larose made no comment and Jones went on sharply. “Now I have learnt something about these two men who were here and you can make of it what you will.” He spoke with the assurance of a man who never made mistakes. “Luke was a seaman, evidently, by trade. No, no, he didn’t drink rum or walk bandy-legged, and he wasn’t tattooed and he didn’t smoke plug tobacco. No, nothing like that, but I noticed that whenever he stepped out of the door, his first thought was to look up at the sky. Seafaring men invariably do that, even if they have been half a lifetime off the sea. It’s a habit with them, and they look up automatically to see which way the wind is blowing. I have always noticed it. Apart from that, too, he was always interested in ships, and a sailing barque would keep him looking through his glasses as long as she was in sight. The other man, he was called Prince, was of quite a different class. He was a gentleman.”

“Every inch of him,” commented Larose sarcastically, “and you would need no convincing of that if you had heard him discussing the best way of putting you to death without making a mess.”

“He had served in the war, too,” continued Jones, ignoring the interruption, “for I saw three scars, once when he was coming out after a dip in the sea. Bullet wounds in his arm and shoulder and a bayonet one through his thigh.”

“More likely he was a gangster,” said Larose, determined now to disagree with Jones as much as possible, “and acquired those injuries in a get-away after a hold-up.”

Jones shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “He was particular about his person, he carried himself well and he shaved every day. Besides, that was a bayonet wound in his thigh, for it had gone right through and the scar was evidence of a wide cut.” His voice took on a sneering tone. “And I know of no policeman in any country of the world who employs bayonets in hindering get-aways after a hold-up.” He screwed up his face. “This man, Prince, too, at one time of his life had probably had something to do with farming, for some sheep one day straying upon the marshes, I heard him tell his companion that they were of the Lincoln breed, big animals with long wool.”

For the second time then within a few minutes, Larose paid a silent tribute of admiration to the acumen of the great investigator, for, remembering the questions that had been asked him that night in the lane, he realised how sound the latter’s deductions now were.

“Well, Mr. Larose.” said Jones, and he smiled now for the first time, “I will admit that from the moment they were informed that Lady Ardane had been taken, the county police have shown themselves to be most energetic and capable, for I have had concrete evidence from the enquiries that I made from a sick bed, that within ten minutes of the call getting through to Norwich, they had blocked not only every road in Norfolk, but also in the adjoining counties as well.”

“Yes,” nodded Larose, his good humor now coming back, “the Norwich Superintendent came to see me yesterday, and even now, although a week has passed, no car can proceed very far upon any main road without being bailed up and searched.”

“And they are of opinion,” suggested Jones, “that she is still held prisoner somewhere in this neighborhood?” He screwed up his face and asked sharply, “Is that your opinion, too, Mr. Larose?”

The detective hesitated. “I am not certain,” he replied. “On the one hand, a swift car may have met that delivery van just outside the Abbey fence and, it is possible, have got forty or fifty miles away with the prisoners before the cordon was set — yet on the other hand, the under-chauffeur, who bicycled into Burnham Market, said he was speaking on the phone there within nine minutes of the delivery van having got away, and in Norwich, the Superintendent swears the news was being put over the air four minutes after he received it. So thousands and thousands of people must have been on the look out, yet no one, in any direction, has come forward to say that he or she saw a car passing at undue speed at that time of the day.”

“Yes,” nodded Jones, after a minute. “I’ll admit there is something in that. You mean, of course, that to have escaped being caught in the meshes of the cordon when it was set, the car must have travelled at such excessive speed that it would have been remarked upon in many quarters.”

He drew in a deep breath. “Well, we’ll drop that side of the problem for the moment, and discuss these gentlemen who were up at the Abbey, and the puzzle to me at once is, that having obtained possession of the child, they made no demand upon Lady Ardane, but, instead, waited to get her, too.” He smiled dryly. “Now I think we can both honorably exchange confidences, and if you have indeed made any discoveries at all during your five days’ sojourn at the Abbey, then you can tell me and I will comment upon them.” He nodded in great condescension. “But you must certainly have found out something, to have come to this house and got knocked out as you did. You had some reason for being curious about these men.”

Yet a third time was Larose upon the verge of a downright quarrel with the half-sneering and wholly sarcastic Jones and he thought deliciously with what interest he could pay back the latter’s rudeness, by throwing into his vanity the bomb that the little baronet was not now a prisoner on the kidnappers’ hands.

But he reflected that Jones had been much longer upon the scene than he had, and by reticence and tact he might pick up some useful information. So he told him most of what he had discovered at the Abbey, keeping back, however, all reference to his visit to Sir Parry’s house, the latter’s housekeeper, and the recovery of the child.

Jones puckered up his brows when he told him o............