“Great Scott!” observed Mr. Doyle a moment later, in tones of respect. “He’s _handcuffed_ ’em. Handcuffed ’em together. Handcuffed Laura to—well, well, I’ll be blowed!” One gathered that the person who ventured to handcuff Laura had earned Mr. Doyle’s deepest veneration. Guy began to chuckle silently. The idea of a handcuffed Laura appeared to appeal to him too. “Keep still!” Mr. Doyle implored, recovering from the first shock of this novel spectacle. “Oh, Nesbitt, keep still! We mustn’t interrupt this. Oh, sacred pigs, how gorgeous! Look, he’s going to make out a report. My dear chap, _can_ you see Laura’s face? We’ll rescue ’em later somehow, but—oh, _cripes_!” He clung to a laurel-branch and abandoned himself to helpless giggling. Guy, scarcely less self-controlled, caught at his arm. “Look! That friend of yours is turning the tables. Oh, well done, man, well done! Look—he’s going to put him in the cupboard. He—well, I’ll be hanged!” With damp eyes they watched Mr. Priestley’s imitation of an American film-drama. An instant later a heavy body in swift if somewhat unsteady motion, lumbered past their hiding-place; peeping cautiously out, they were just able to catch the look of alarm and despondency which was being worn by the most disconcerted damsel in England at that moment. They clapped their hands hurriedly over their mouths and clung to one another again. Then came George. “Did you fellows see?” demanded George weakly. “_Did_ you see?” “We did, oh admirable corpse,” moaned Mr. Doyle and promptly clung to this more solid support. “And do you mean to say you lay through it all and never gave yourself away?” “Don’t think I did, no,” replied George modestly. “But look here, I say, what on earth are we going to do? That bobby’s rather messed things up, hasn’t he?” “We’ll give them ten minutes to get away,” Guy grinned, “and then we’ll liberate him. It’s all right, I think. Laura will take her cue from that handcuff, and see the game’s up. She’ll bring him back here, and we’ll have to file the thing off. Do you know, I wondered all the time whether it would come off at all (the plot, I mean, not the handcuff), but I never dreamed it would fail as gloriously as that.” “She got him up to scratch all right,” George observed. “Something to do with letters, he was babbling about. Anyhow, he pooped off like a good ’un. Well, what about wandering along to the drawing-room and telling the other two what’s happened? I say, we’ll have to let that bobby out soon, or he’ll have the house over. Listen to him!” They listened. Through the French windows now came sounds as of a large person in distress, whoopings, bellowings and thuds, mingled now and then with muffled solos on the policeman’s whistle. “We’ll give him five minutes,” Guy decided. “Come on, then.”