When the procession of three, led by the stranger with a brace of pistols at his head, had filed off to the grand staircase, Sybil ran back to her room and fetched her candle. An inspection of the Duke’s door showed that a panel had been partially cut out with a watch-spring saw, which was still sticking in the almost invisible fissure. CHAPTER IX—_The Strategy of the General_ Some five hours later General Sadgrove, at his house in Grosvenor Gardens, was taking his morning tub, when a servant tapped at the door of the bathroom and informed him that Mr. Alec Forsyth wanted to see him very urgently. The General as speedily as possible donned his dressing-gown and descended to his sanctum. His keen eyes just glanced at the troubled face of the young man standing on the hearth-rug; then, in his laconic way, he asked: "What’s wrong, laddie? Your chum Beaumanoir been in the wars?" Forsyth favored him with a startled stare, and then broke into an uneasy laugh. "You seem to have been exercising your faculty of second-sight already, Uncle Jem," he said. "The man was being _stalked_," said the General. "Has anyone caught him?" "Very nearly," replied Forsyth; and he proceeded to narrate the events of the night, and also what Beaumanoir had told him of the previous attempts on his life. At mention of the Duke’s absolute refusal to disclose the cause of the vendetta and to invoke the protection of the police, General Sadgrove drew a long breath. On hearing that he had in the small hours of that morning, thanks to the vigilance of Sybil Hanbury, held one of his would-be assassins at his mercy, but had quietly escorted him to the door and let him go, the whilom hunter of Dacoits uttered inarticulate grunts. "And now, Uncle Jem, I have come to you for help," Forsyth proceeded earnestly. "I have persuaded the Duke to permit me to tell you in strictest confidence as much as he has told me, and I think if you can make any suggestions for baffling these unknown malefactors that he will adopt them—always provided your advice does not entail going to the police. He has given me his word of honor to remain at Beaumanoir House until I return; but the odds are they’ll have another shy at him directly he pokes his nose outside." The General had been absently toying with a tray of Indian curios, but he now looked sharply up at his nephew. "You are not exactly blind, Alec, and can read between the lines," he said. "Reluctance on the part of a man threatened with murder to communicate with the authorities must mean that he has got an ugly sort of secret himself." "You know his record, sir. Charles Hanbury was never anyone’s enemy but his own, and I expect the Duke of Beaumanoir is much the same," replied Forsyth with a warmth which left the General quite unmoved. The old warrior reverted to his curios and spent a couple of minutes in balancing an Afghan dagger on his finger, till, apparently inspired by the performance, he laid the venomous blade aside.