dogs a run. She told me Sir Michael was expecting me, and led the way
into the hall.

"I think he is in the library," she said, and opened a door. "Oh, I am
sorry, I thought you were alone, Sir Michael. It is Mr. Wigan."

He called out for me to enter. He was standing by a writing table,
talking to a young farmer, apparently a tenant on the estate because Sir
Michael was dismissing him with a promise to consider certain repairs to
some outbuildings. As the farmer passed me on his way to the door Sir
Michael held out his hand.

"You are later than I expected, and I thought Mr. Quarles--"

Then he laughed. I had been seized from behind, a rope was round me,
binding my arms to my side, a sudden jerk had me on my back. In that
instant Sir Michael was upon me, and I was gagged and trussed almost
before I realized what had happened. Never did the veriest tyro walk more
innocently into a trap.

"That's well done," said Sir Michael to the farmer. "You had better go
and see that the other has been taken as successfully."

Alone with me, he removed the revolver from my hip pocket and placed it
in a drawer, which he locked.

"Rather a surprise for you, Mr. Wigan. I am afraid Scotland Yard is
likely to lose an officer, and your friend Quarles is an old man who has
had a very good inning. I do not know exactly where he is at the present
moment, but somewhere about the grounds he has been caught and is in a