In order to avert suspicion, I thought it was better not to shut up my house. For the same purpose, I did a little in crime on my own account. A man tires of only being an accessory. William, the Sphynx, obviously ‘was in the know,’ as sporting characters say. Was in the know of what was in the snow! I must silence William. I took my measures quietly. First I laid in two dozen of very curious pale sherry at half-a-crown. I bought each bottle at a separate shop in a different disguise (making twenty-four in all), that my proceedings might not attract attention. I laid down the deadly fluid with all proper caution in the cellar. At parting from William I gave him five shillings and the cellar key, telling him to be very careful, and await my instructions. I knew well that long before my ‘instructions’ could reach him, the faithful William would be speechless, and far beyond the reach of human science. His secret would sleep with the White Groom. Then Philippa and I drove to town, Philippa asking me conundrums, like Nebuchadnezzar. ‘There was something I dreamed of. Tell me what it was?’ she asked. But, though better informed than the Wise Men and Soothsayers of old, I did not gratify her unusual desire. On reaching town I drove straight to the hotel at which my mother was staying. It was one of those highly-priced private hotels in the New Out. As, however, I had no desire to purchase this place of entertainment, the exorbitant value set on it by its proprietors did not affect my spirits. In a few minutes I had told my mother all save two things: the business of the baby, and the fate which had overtaken Sir Runan. With these trifling exceptions she knew all. To fall into Philippa’s arms was, to my still active parent, the work of a moment. Then Philippa looked at me with an artless wink. ‘Basil, my brother, you are really too good.’ Ah, how happy I should have felt could that one dark night’s work have been undone! CHAPTER VII.--Rescue And Retire! HITHERTO I have said little about my mother, and I may even seem to have regarded that lady in the light of a temporary convenience. My readers will, however, already have guessed that _my_ mother was no common character. Consider for a moment the position which she so readily consented to occupy. The trifling details about the sudden decease of Sir Runan and the affair of the baby, as we have seen, I had thought it better _not_ to name to her. Matters, therefore, in her opinion, stood thus:-- Philippa was the victim of a baronet’s wiles. When off with the new love, she had promptly returned and passed a considerable time under the roof of the old love; that is, of myself. Then I had suddenly arrived with this eligible prospective daughter-in-law at my mother’s high-priced hotel, and I kept insisting that we should at once migrate, we three, to foreign parts--the more foreign the better.