“According to all accounts. Lord Wrenwyck is half insane. He had been mixed up with some financial transactions with Stent, and had taken the man’s measure, had satisfied himself that he would carry out any villainous scheme, so long as he was well paid for the risk. He it was who suggested the abduction of Mr Monkton, the systematic drugging at Forest View, where he would come in while his unhappy prisoner was asleep, and watch him with a fiendish smile spreading over his repulsive countenance.”
At this point Sheila raised her hands with a gesture of despair. “And yet this fiend is to go scot-free, and live to work further evil.”
“He will not do that,” said Mrs Saxton quickly. “Smeaton, after our interview, compelled him to go to Scotland Yard. Depend upon it. Lord Wrenwyck will not risk his fate a second time. He will be rendered powerless by the fact that his cunningly laid scheme was frustrated, and also that it is known to those who could set the law in motion at any moment they chose.”
And again Sheila murmured, “You may be right, but I cannot understand.”
“I am coming now to the end of my story,” Mrs Saxton continued, after this interruption. “I was walking one day into Horsham, and was accosted by a young man who seemed desirous of striking up an acquaintance. I rebuffed him, of course, and learned afterwards that he made similar advances to the young woman who was supposed to be my fellow-servant. At once it struck me that he was spying upon us. He lodged at a small inn a little distance away, and gave out that he was an artist. I mentioned the matter to Stent, but he rather laughed at the idea; told me I had got detectives on the brain. He was destitute of nerves himself, and had an exaggerated belief in his own capacity to outwit everybody.
“Pondering upon the means by which I could extricate my patient—if I may call him so—from a position which I felt convinced was growing more perilous, the idea of using this young man came into my mind. Day after day I impressed upon Stent that my fears were well grounded, and that at any moment he might be faced with discovery. At last I invented a story that I had seen this man who called himself Franks standing outside the house with another person, obviously a detective, and had heard the latter say distinctly; ‘Smeaton himself thinks we have given them rope enough.’
“You know the story of the removal in the dead of night?”
She addressed her question to Wingate, appreciating the fact that he showed his hostility less plainly than did his sweetheart.
The young man nodded. “Yes, we know that.”
“Stent was at last impressed, and agreed that we must leave Forest View as quickly and secretly as possible. Stent and the other maid—Lord Wrenwyck had left us by then—travelled in the van. I drove Mr Monkton in the motor by a roundabout route—I may tell you I am an expert driver. My destination was supposed to be the house of the confederate where he had first been taken.