Soapy hesitated for a moment. The thought of a twenty-mile journey on a machine which he had always supposed to have become obsolete during his knickerbocker days made him quail a little. Then the thought of his mission lent him strength. He was a desperate man, and desperate men must do desperate things. "Fetch it out!" he said. Bolt fetched it out, and Soapy, looking upon it, quailed again. "Is that it?" he said dully. "That's it, sir," said the chauffeur. There was only one adjective to describe this push-bike--the adjective "blackguardly." It had that leering air, shared by some parrots and the baser variety of cat, of having seen and been jauntily familiar with all the sin of the world. It looked low and furtive. Its handle-bars curved up instead of down, it had gaps in its spokes, and its pedals were naked and unashamed. A sans-culotte of a bicycle. The sort of bicycle that snaps at strangers. "H'm!" said Soapy, ruminating. "Yes," said Soapy, still ruminating. Then he remembered again how imperative was the need of reaching Healthward Ho somehow. "All right," he said, with a shudder. He climbed onto the machine, and after one majestic wobble passed through the gates into the park, pedalling bravely. As he disappeared from view, there floated back to Bolt, standing outside the stable yard, a single, agonized "Ouch!" Chauffeurs do not laugh, but they occasionally smile. Bolt smiled. He had been bitten by that bicycle himself. IV It was twenty minutes past one that butler Sturgis, dozing in his pantry, was jerked from slumber by the sound of the telephone bell. He had been hoping for an uninterrupted siesta, for he had had a perplexing and trying morning. First, on top of the most sensational night of his life, there had been all the nervous excitement of seeing policemen roaming about the place. Then the American gentleman, Mr. Molloy, had told him that Mr. Carmody wanted something to drink, and Mr. Carmody had denied having ordered it. Then Mr. Molloy had asked for a drink himself and had disappeared without waiting to get it. And, finally, there was the matter of the cupboard. Mr. Molloy, after starting to build a rabbit hutch, had apparently suspended operations in favour of smashing in the door of the cupboard at the foot of the stairs. It was all very puzzling to Sturgis, and, like most men of settled habit, he found the process of being puzzled upsetting. He went to the telephone, and a silver voice came to him over the wire. "Is this the Hall? I want to speak to Mr. Carroll." Sturgis recognized the voice. "Miss Wyvern?" "Yes. Is that Sturgis? I say, Sturgis, what has become of Mr. Carroll? I was expecting him here half an hour ago. Have you seen him about anywhere?" "I have not seen him since shortly after breakfast, miss. I understand that he went off in his little car with Miss Molloy." "What!" "Yes, miss. Some time ago." There was silence at the other end of the wire.