“Well, it looked like a man.... I’ll tell you the truth, it looked like Uncle Isaac. Don’t imagine for one second that it _was_ Uncle Isaac,” he warned them. “I cast no aspersions. He got through the door before I could properly see him.” “You must have been mistaken, Mr. Superbus,” said Diana. “I saw it slip past me and out of that door.” Julius pointed. “You were mistaken,” said Diana. “The man went out of the window and from the window into the courtyard. And then over the wall. The window was found open.” But Julius was really not interested in the escaping criminal. On the other hand, he was very much interested in his own emotions. For once he felt that the eyes of the world were on him. “As I lay there,” he said, “the whole of my life flitted before me. I saw my old school and the schoolmaster waiting for me at the door with his cane behind his back. I saw the public-house what I used to use as a young man, and where I met my good lady, owing to taking her father home one night and helping the family to put him to bed----” “Yes, yes,” interrupted Bobbie, a little unkindly, “it must have been a dreadful experience. Now tell us how you came to be asleep whilst these people were breaking open the safe?” Mr. Superbus raised his eyebrows and shut his eyes. “Drugs,” he said. “The coffee must have been drugged last night. I’m a light sleeper. The slightest noise and I’m awake!” Bobbie nodded. “Oh, you _did_ hear the pistol then?” he said. Diana thought his remark somewhat offensive. CHAPTER XXVI With the remark that he had to go to his good lady or his good lady would have to come to him, Julius had taken his departure in a motor ambulance. He could as well have gone by taxi, but he expressed a preference for an ambulance. “One with a red cross,” he suggested. Diana had ’phoned a garage, and Julius Superbus made his exit dramatically, covered with blankets, flat on a stretcher, and smiling the smile of one who was not long for this world but wasn’t afraid to go. “And what my missus will say when I come home short, I shudder to think,” he said pathetically. “I don’t know: the only satisfaction I’ve got is that it was done on dooty.” This significantly. When he had gone, Diana asked: “What is a toe worth, Bobbie? I must send the poor dear something. Would two hundred pounds be too little?” “It was a little toe,” said Bobbie thoughtfully; “a big toe would have cost you more. Try him with two hundred.” Diana wrote at once. She felt in excellent humour despite the empty safe with its hanging door; despite the shadow of tragedy which had impinged upon the house. Eleanor and the cook had made an early return. She had told them to stay away until Tuesday. They had argued (so they said) as to whether she had said Monday or Tuesday, and, to be on the safe side, had returned on the earlier day. Cook’s triumph (she had supported the Tuesday view) was tempered by the chagrin of a lost twenty-four hours of well-paid idleness.