"I thought it was one of the Japs returning, but there was a great banging on the door and then shouting in a good old Cornish accent. I called back that I was tied up in there and that they must break in the door. That they did and burst in--two fishermen and old Possiter the policeman from Duntrent. He's somewhere about the house now with two of the Treliss policemen. Well, it seems that a fellow, Jack Curtis, was going up the hill to his morning work in the Creppit fields above the wood here when he heard a strange cry, and, turning the corner of the road, finds on the path above the rocks, Crispin--pretty smashed up you know. He ran--only a yard or two--to the Possiters' cottage. Possiter was having his breakfast and was up here in no time. They got into the house through a window and saw the two Japanese clearing off up the back garden. Curtis chased them but they beat him and vanished into the wood. They stopped two other men who were passing and then came on Hesther tied up in the library. She sent them to the Tower." "Well--and then?" said Harkness. "There isn't much more. Except this. They got up the doctor, had poor old Jabez's face looked to and cleared him off down to his cottage, were examining your cuts--all this down here. Suddenly a car comes up to the door and in there bursts--young Crispin! The two Treliss policemen had turned up three minutes earlier in _their_ car and were here alone except for Possiter examining Crispin Senior--who was pretty well smashed to pieces I can tell you. "Crispin Junior breaks through, gives one look at his father, shouts out some words that no one can understand, puts a revolver to his temple and blows the top of his head off before any one can stop him. Topples right over his father's body. The end of the house of Crispin! "I saw all this from the staircase. I was just coming down after looking at you. I heard the shot, saw old Possiter jump back and got down in time to help them clear it all up. "No one knows where he'd been. To Truro, I imagine, looking for all of us. He must have cared for that madman, cared for him or been hypnotised by him--_I_ don't know. At least he didn't hesitate----" "And now, sir, would you mind telling me . . .?" said the stout red-faced Treliss policeman, advancing towards them. VIII He was free; it was from the moment that the red-faced policeman, smiling upon him benevolently, had informed him that, for the moment, he had had from him all that he needed, his one burning and determined impulse--to get away from that hall, that garden, that house with the utmost possible urgency. He had not wished even to stay with Hesther and Dunbar. He would see them later in the day, would see them, please God, many many times in the years to come. What he wanted was to be alone--absolutely alone.