"I doubt it very much, sir," replied the detective officer. "These sort of fellows are wide awake, and are always prepared for accidents. I expect that, by this time, he is on his way to France. But hush!--what was that?" A dull sound as of the clapper of a large bell boomed overhead. There was silence for about a minute, and again it was repeated. "Here is a clue, at all events!" cried the officer. "My life on it, there is some one in the belfry." We hastened up the narrow stairs which led to the tower. Half way up, the passage was barred by a stout door, double locked, which the officers had some difficulty in forcing with the aid of a crow-bar. This obstacle removed, we reached the lofty room where the bell was suspended; and there, right under the clapper, on a miserable truckle bed, lay the emaciated form of Mr Pettigrew. "My poor uncle!" said Jack, stooping tenderly to embrace his relative, "what can have brought you here?" "Speak louder, Jack!" said Mr Pettigrew; "I can't hear you. For twelve long days that infernal bell has been tolling just above my head for hockey and other villanous purposes. I am as deaf as a doornail!" "And so thin, dear uncle! You must have been most shamefully abused." "Simply starved; that's all." "What! starved? The monsters! Did they give you nothing to eat?" "Yes--broccoli. I wish you would try it for a week: it is a rare thing to bring out the bones." "And why did they commit this outrage upon you?" "For two especial reasons, I suppose--first, because I would not surrender my whole property; and, secondly, because I would not marry Miss Latchley." "My dear uncle! when I saw you last, it appeared to me that you would have had no objections to perform the latter ceremony." "Not on compulsion, Jack--not on compulsion!" said Mr Pettigrew, with a touch of his old humour. "I won't deny that I was humbugged by her at first, but this was over long ago." "Indeed! Pray, may I venture to ask what changed your opinion of the lady?" "Her works, Jack--her own works!" replied Uncle Peter. "She gave me them to read as soon as I was fairly trapped into the Agapedome, and such an awful collection of impiety and presumption I never saw before. She is ten thousand times worse than the deceased Thomas Paine." "Was she, then, party to your incarceration?" "I won't say that. I hardly think she would have consented to let them harm me, or that she knew exactly how I was used; but that fellow Hyams is wicked enough to have been an officer under King Herod. Now, pray help me up, and lift me down stairs, for my legs are so cramped that I can't walk, and my head is as dizzy as a wheel. That confounded broccoli, too, has disagreed with my constitution, and I shall feel particularly obliged to any one who can assist me to a drop of brandy."