“Well, there’s nothing to contradict that,” Guy agreed. “It’s lucky we gave the maids the week-end off, just in case of emergencies. Emergencies seem to be arising every minute. I’ve thought out a plan. I’ll get George and you, Doyle, to help me push the car out of the garage and a little way down the road, and then I’ll come driving back, making as much noise as I can, and generally enact the householder arriving home after a long ride. I surmise that those strange sounds, which seem to have died away altogether, will then break out with renewed force from the library, and I shall liberate our prisoner. I will then deal with any other emergencies as they crop up. It doesn’t matter about our stories coinciding, because your household won’t have heard or know anything at all. So, after you’ve helped me with the car, you three sneak home and go straight to bed.” “All except me,” murmured Mr. Doyle, “who will be summoned to the telephone a few minutes after the prisoner has been liberated. ‘Knowing that such a distinguished journalist was in the vicinity, Mr. Nesbitt, etc.’” Guy grinned at him guiltily. “You’re not going to make a newspaper story of it too, Doyle, surely?” “You bet I am,” rejoined Mr. Doyle grimly. “And a houseful of furniture too. My motives, let it be understood, are entirely mercenary.” “Well, good luck to them! Now then, here comes George; are we all ready?” “I say,” said Cynthia suddenly. “I wonder what’s happening to poor Laura all this time? It’s nearly half-past eleven. Oughtn’t we to do something about her? But I suppose we can’t!” It was the first time anybody had given a thought to poor Laura for almost an hour. “By Jove, yes, Laura,” agreed her husband. “We must keep an eye open for her. I hope she doesn’t bring that fellow gaol-bird of hers back at an awkward moment. And what the deuce are we going to do about _him_?” Had Guy but known it, that question was already in process of being answered for him at a spot some considerable distance away. Chapter VI. Adventures of a Pair of Handcuffs When Mr. Priestley performed his masterly retreat from the scene of his crime it was without any definite plan in his head beyond reaching the waiting two-seater and reaching it very quickly. Blundering through shrubberies and over flower-beds, his speechless burden still in his arms, he made his way by a sort of blind instinct to the hedge that bordered the road. Through it he plunged manfully, heedless of the prickly twigs which scratched his face and hands and the dangling legs of his companion (a fact of which the companion herself was anything but heedless), and then at last set his burden on her feet.