"It is too absurd, too absurd!" said Sir Philip, after a moment, speaking with a little shaky laugh and looking Dollops up and down with half-contemptuous interest. "I hope, Raynor, that you——Good heavens above! What asinine mistakes the law does sometimes make. And it is all so easily explained. Superintendent Narkom of the Yard will speak for me if it is necessary. There can, by no shadow of possibility, be anything to connect me with that abominable case."
It was here that Cleek chose to take part in the affair, and with a warning glance at Ailsa, who had come up and joined the gathering, stepped forward and addressed Sir Philip.
"My dear Sir Philip Clavering, allow me to introduce myself," he said suavely, serene in the confidence that Dollops, hearing, would take the cue and act accordingly. "My name is Barch; I am at present a guest of the General's, and I am taking this liberty because I, too, happen to be a friend of Mr. Narkom's. I have heard him speak of you time and again, and always with the warmest interest. Perhaps, then, if we question this young man——" He turned to Dollops, and Dollops looked at him and never turned a hair! "Boy, what's all this thing about? How came you in this place, and for what reason?"
"Come in by the garden door, sir, 'arf an hour or so back. Told off by my gov'ner to lie low and wait for somebody who might come a-sneakin' about, meanin' to break into the house, I suppose, and with his eye on the plate."
"I see! Well, better take my advice, my lad, and unlock those handcuffs, and set this gentleman at liberty before they do come, or you're likely to have a sharp talking to from Superintendent Narkom. By the way, what induced you to snap them on him in the first place? You surely do not expect us to believe that a gentleman of Sir Philip Clavering's standing was acting suspiciously? What was he doing, if you please, that you should have gone to such a length?"
"Sneakin' along and feelin' about the bushes like he was huntin' for somethin'," said Dollops as he unlocked the handcuffs and put them in his pocket.
"He is quite right in that, Mr. Barch. I was looking for something," said Sir Philip, wiping his wrists with his handkerchief, as though to remove something of the infection with which he felt he had come into contact. "As a matter of fact, I was looking for my way. I had come into the grounds from a point where I had never before entered them, and I was endeavouring to find a path which would lead me to the house. As it was as black as a pocket, nothing was left me but to feel my way. I got hopelessly muddled up, and was just telling myself that I would have done better to make my call in orthodox fashion and by the regular entrance, when, the first thing I knew, this enterprising young man jumped out of the dark and pounced on me like a monkey. You see, it was this way, Raynor," glancing up at the General, who was looking at him fixedly, and with a curious ridge between his brows, as if, for some reason, he only half believed him, though for years they had been tried and trusted friends; "I was in such a dickens of a hurry to see you that when I came off the Common and found that wall door open——"
"Open? What wall door open?" interposed the General agitatedly.
"The one at the angle of the wall, where your boundary flanks the waste land between here and the right-of-way across the fields."
"And you found that door open? Open? Why, man alive, it has been locked and screwed up for years."