Her face lit up with a malignant joy. "A nice thing!" she screamed. "Respectable folk to be treated in this way! What have we done, I'd like to know? Breaking into our house and assaulting us!" "No good talking to her," said the chief. "She's a deep one--tough as they make 'em. Let's search the grounds." CHAPTER XXIV IN FULL CRY Polly, the maid from the inn, waiting breathlessly intent in the car outside the gate, listened for sounds which should guide her as to the progress of events within. Steingall left her standing on the upholstered back of the car, with her hands clutching the top of the gate. She did not descend immediately. In that position she could best hear approaching footsteps, as she could follow the running of the detective nearly all the way to the house. Great was her surprise, therefore, to find some one unlocking the gate without receiving any preliminary warning of his advent. She was just in time to spring back into the tonneau when one-half of the ponderous door swung open and a man appeared, carrying in his arms the seemingly lifeless body of a woman. It will be remembered that the lamps of the car spread their beams in the opposite direction. In the gloom, not only of the night but of the high wall and the trees, Polly could not distinguish features. She thought, however, the man was a stranger. Naturally, as the rescuers had just gone toward the point whence the newcomer came, she believed that he had been directed to carry the young lady to the waiting car. Her quick sympathy was aroused. "The poor dear!" she cried. "Oh, don't tell me those horrid people have hurt her." Voles who had choked Winifred into insensibility with a mixture of alcohol, chloroform, and ether--a scientific anesthetic used by all surgeons, rapid in achieving its purpose and quite harmless in its effects--was far more surprised than Polly. He never expected to be greeted in this way, but rather to be met by some helper of Carshaw's posed there, and he was prepared to fight or trick his adversary as occasion demanded. He had carried Winifred down a servants' stairs and made his way out of the house by a back door. The exit was unguarded. In this, as in many other country mansions, the drive followed a circuitous sweep, but a path through the trees led directly toward the gate. Hence, his passage had neither been observed from the hall nor overheard by Polly. It was in precisely such a situation as that which faced him now that Voles was really superb. He was an adroit man, with ready judgment and nerves of steel. "Not much hurt," he said quietly. "She has fainted from shock, I think." Though he spoke so glibly, his brain was on fire with question and answer. His eyes glowered at the car and its occupant, and swept the open road on either hand.