AS may be guessed, Jennings was very vexed that Maraquito had escaped. He had posted his men at the front and back doors and also at the side entrance through which Senora Gredos in her disguise as Mrs. Herne had entered. He never considered for the moment that so clever a woman might have some way of escape other than he had guessed. "Yet I might have thought it," he said, when Cuthbert and he left the house. "I expect that place is like a rabbit-burrow. Maraquito always expected to be taken some day in spite of her clever assumption of helplessness. That was a smart dodge."
"How did you learn that she was shamming?"
"I only guessed so. I had no proof. But when I interviewed the pseudo Mrs. Herne at her Hampstead lodgings, she betrayed so much emotion when speaking of you that I guessed it was the woman herself. I only tried that experiment to see if she was really ill. If she had not moved I should have been done."
"It seems to me that you are done now," said Cuthbert angrily. He was not very pleased at the use Jennings had made of him.
"By no means. Maraquito will take refuge in a place I know of. She does not fancy I am aware of its existence. But I am on my way there now. You can come also if you like."
"No," said Mallow decisively, "so far as I am concerned, I have no further interest in these matters. I told you so the other day."
"Don't you wish to know who killed Miss Loach?"
Mallow hesitated, and wondered how much the detective knew. "Have you any clue to the assassin?" he asked.
Jennings shrugged his shoulders. "I can't say that. But I suspect the coiners have something to do with the matter."
"The coiners?"