"That's me, and me only!" commented the foreman complacently. "I'm the band, cockie, and don't you forget it."
"It means," said Sergeant Wrannock, "that having information that this house was packed with firearms, I came to make investigation and——"
"Got caught, cockie," interrupted the foreman.
"Hold your tongue!" shouted Mr. Greenhales, in a hollow, toothless voice, dancing with fury. "Hold your tongue! You shall suffer for this."
At last, from the incoherent shoutings and reproaches in which the words "Germans," "Spies," "Herr Müller," were bandied back and forth, Mr. Miller and the inspector pieced together the story of how four patriots had been overcome by one foreman pantechnicon-man. The inspector turned to Mr. Miller.
"As a matter of form, sir, and in the execution of my duty, I should be glad to know if it is true that your house is full of arms and ammunition?" he asked politely.
"Of arms, certainly, Inspector, most certainly," Mr. Miller replied. "I am supposed to have the finest collection of firearms in the country. Come and see them, or such as are unpacked."
And the inspector looked at Sergeant Wrannock, and the plain-clothes constables looked away from him, and Sir Charles and Mr. Greenhales looked irefully round for Bindle; but Bindle was nowhere to be seen.
"Funny none of 'em seem to see the joke!" he remarked to a clump of rhododendrons half-way down the drive.