As we rushed through the darkness, we speculated on the reasons for his last daring move—the sending for his daughter. O’Mally figured it out as the result of a growing confidence—he was feeling secure and wanted to help her. He had had ample proof of her discretion and had probably some plan for her enrichment that he wanted to communicate to her in person. I was of the opinion that he expected to leave the country and intended to take her with him, sending back later for the mother. He was assured of her trust and affection, knew she believed in him, and was certain the murder hadn’t been and now never would be discovered. He could count on safety in Europe and with his vast gains could settle down with his wife and his daughter to a life of splendid ease. Well, we’d see to _that_. The best laid schemes of mice and men! The sun was bright, the sky sapphire clear as the great rock of Quebec, crowned with its fortress roofs, came into view. The two rivers clasped its base, ice-banded at the shore and in the middle their dark currents flowing free. Snow and snow and snow heaved and billowed on the surrounding hills, paved the narrow streets, hooded the roofs of the ancient houses. Through the air, razor-edged with cold and crystal clear, came the thin broken music of sleigh bells, ringing up from every lane and alley, jubilant and inspiring, and the sleighs, low running, flew by with the wave of their streaming furs and the flash of scarlet standards. Glorious, splendid, a fit day, all sun and color and music, for me to come to Carol! A man met us at the depot, a silent, wooden-faced policeman of some kind, who said yes, he thought the lady was there, and then piloted us glumly into a sleigh and mounted beside the driver. A continuous, vague current of sound came from Babbitts and O’Mally as we climbed a steep hill with the Frontenac’s pinnacled towers looming above us and then shot off down narrow streets where the jingle of the bells was flung back and across, echoing and reverberating between the old stone houses. It made me think of a phrase the boys in the office used, "coming with bells!" We went some distance through the town and out along a road, where the buildings drew apart from one another, villas and suburban houses behind walls and gardens. At a smaller one, set back in a muffling of whitened shrubberies, the sleigh drew in toward the sidewalk. Before the others could disentangle themselves from the furs and robes, I was out and racing up the path. My eyes, ranging hungrily over the house, thinking perhaps to see her at one of the windows, saw in it something ominous and secretive. There was not a sign of life, every pane darkened with a lowered blind. All about it the snow was heaped and curled in wave-like forms as if endeavoring to creep over it, to aid in the work of hiding its dark mystery. Barker’s lair, his last stand! It looked like it, white wrapped, silent, inscrutable.