Everything was quickly settled. Albeury was to go at once to Scotland Yard and make arrangements for the arrest of the gang at Eldon Hall on the following day but one; the arrival of the large body of detectives that would be needed would have, as he explained, to be planned with the greatest secrecy. After that he would catch the night express to the north, and, on the following morning, himself call at Eldon Hall to see Lord Cranmere. He would not alarm him in the least, he said. He would tell him merely that there were suspicions of a proposed attempted robbery, and ask leave to station detectives. "And I'm to stay here with Simon, I suppose," I said despondently, "until everything is finished." "Not a bit of it," he answered. "Simon will stay here, and with him a detective who will arrive to-night at midnight. We may need you at Eldon Hall, and you must be there." "Meet you there? But I have promised those men that—besides, supposing that I am seen." "As far as those scoundrels are concerned," he answered, "all they care about is to save their wretched skins. You won't be seen, that I'll guarantee, but none the less you must be there—it's absolutely necessary. A closed car will await you at the Bond Street Tube station at three o'clock to-morrow morning. Ask the driver no questions—he will have his orders." Some minutes later Albeury left us. Osborne had already gone. I told Simon, who had been taken into our confidence, to pack a few necessaries in a small bag for me, and then, seated alone, smoking a cigar for the first time since my return, I allowed my thoughts to wander. CHAPTER XXVIII THE FACES UNMASKED Eldon Hall is one of those fine old country mansions so much admired, and not infrequently coveted by, rich Americans who come over to "do England." It was the late Colonel North, of nitrate fame, who, upon visiting Killeen Castle, in County Meath, with a view to buying the place for his son, laconically observed: "Yes, it's not a bad old pile, but much too ramshackle for my son. I could manage to live in it, I dare say, but if my son buys it he'll pull it down and rebuild it," a remark which tickled its owner a good deal. Eldon Hall, in Northumberland, is fully as old and in some respects as venerable a "pile" as Killeen Castle, though its architecture is wholly different. Many attempts have been made to fix the date of Eldon—the property has been in Lord Cranmere's family "from a period," as the lawyers say, "so far back that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary"—but experts differ considerably in their opinions.