"Well, sir, it's very clever. There's an old oak near the wall, and the trunk is hollow. All anyone has to do is to climb up through the trunk by means of stairs and drop over the wall. The coiners were making for that when we captured them."
"Humph! Have that place watched. Maraquito may come here to-night after all. It is now one o'clock."
"I don't think she'll come, Mr. Jennings. But we have every point watched. No one can come or go unless we know."
"Come along then," said Jennings, who was growing weak, "let us see Hale. The sooner his confession is written and signed the better."
Not another word did Jennings say till he got on to the ground floor of the villa. But he had been thinking, for when there he turned to the man who supported him. "How is it the oak with the hollow trunk still stands?" he asked.
"Oh, it escaped the fire, sir. Some of the boughs were burnt off but the trunk itself is all right. It is close to the wall too."
"Humph!" said Jennings, setting his teeth with the pain, "give me a sup of brandy out of your flask, Atkins. Now for Hale."
When he arrived in the bedroom where Hale was lying groaning, Jennings had the factitious strength of the spirit. A sleepy-eyed clerk was seated at the table with sheets of paper before him. A lamp was on the table. Mrs. Barnes was crouching in a chair near the bed. When she saw Jennings she flung herself down weeping.
"Oh, sir, I knew no more of this than a babe unborn," she wailed, "I never thought my second was a villing. To think that Thomas—"
"That's all right, Mrs. Barnes, I quite acquit you."