“Lights everywhere?” asked Leon quickly.
“Yes, sir—in the parlour at any rate.”
“No sign of a struggle?”
“No, sir, but a car passed me three miles from the house and it was going at a tremendous rate. I think she may have been in that. Mr. Digby and Miss Goddard have just gone into Gloucester.”
“All right, officer. I am sending Mr. Gonsalez down to see you,” said Leon, and hung up the receiver.
“What is it?” asked George Manfred, who knew that something was wrong by his friend’s face.
“They’ve got Mirabelle Leicester after all,” said Leon. “I’m afraid I shall have to break my promise to you, George. That machine of mine is going to travel before daybreak!”
| Chapter XIX | At Heavytree Farm |
IT had been agreed that, having failed in their attack, and their energies for the moment being directed to Rath Hall, an immediate return of the Old Guard to Heavytree Farm was unlikely. This had been Meadows’ view, and Leon and his friend were of the same mind. Only Poiccart, that master strategist, working surely with a queer knowledge of his enemies’ psychology, had demurred from this reasoning; but as he had not insisted upon his point of view, Heavytree Farm and its occupants had been left to the care of the local police and the shaken Digby.
Aunt Alma offered to give up her room to the wounded man, but he would not hear of this, and took the spare bedroom; an excellent position for a defender, since it separated Mirabelle’s apartment from the pretty little room which Aunt Alma used as a study and sleeping-place.