"Wait a mom'nt," replied that clear-headed maiden, picking her teeth thoughtfully with the muzzle of her revolver. "Wait mom'nt. Gotta look 'nto this. Hear both these guys' st'ries." "Really," said Gentleman Jack suavely, "it seems somewhat absurd--" "Ney' mind how 'bsurd 't sounds," returned the fair Trimble rebukingly. "You close y'r face 'n lissen t' me. Thass all you've gotta do." "I know you didn't do it!" cried Ann, tightening her hold on Jimmy's arm. "Less 'f it, please. Less 'f it!" Miss Trimble removed the pistol from her mouth and pointed it at Jimmy. "What've you to say? Talk quick!" "I happened to be down there--" "Why?" asked Miss Trimble, as if she had touched off a bomb. Jimmy stopped short. He perceived difficulties in the way of explanation. "I happened to be down there," he resumed stoutly, "and that man came into the room with an electric torch and a blowpipe and began working on the safe--" The polished tones of Gentleman Jack cut in on his story. "Really now, is it worth while?" He turned to Miss Trimble. "I came down here, having heard a noise. I did not _happen_ to be here for some unexplained purpose. I was lying awake and something attracted my attention. As Mrs. Pett knows, I was suspicious of this worthy and expected him to make an attempt on the explosive at any moment: so I took my pistol and crept downstairs. When I got here, the safe was open and this man making for the window." Miss Trimble scratched her chin caressingly with the revolver, and remained for a moment in thought. Then she turned to Jimmy like a striking rattlesnake. "Y' gotta pull someth'g better th'n that," she said. "I got y'r number. Y're caught with th' goods." "No!" cried Ann. "Yes!" said Mrs. Pett. "The thing is obvious." "I think the best thing I can do," said Gentleman Jack smoothly, "is to go and telephone for the police." "You think of everything, Lord Wisbeach," said Mrs. Pett. "Not at all," said his lordship. Jimmy watched him moving to the door. At the back of his mind there was a dull feeling that he could solve the whole trouble if only he could remember one fact which had escaped him. The effects of the blow he had received still handicapped him. He struggled to remember, but without result. Gentleman Jack reached the door and opened it: and as he did so a shrill yapping, hitherto inaudible because of the intervening oak and the raised voices within, made itself heard from the passage outside. Gentleman Jack closed the door with a hasty bang. "I say that dog's out there!" he said plaintively. The scratching of Aida's busy feet on the wood bore out his words. He looked about him, baffled. "That dog's out there!" he repeated gloomily. Something seemed to give way in Jimmy's brain. The simple fact which had eluded him till now sprang into his mind.