Suddenly he stooped to the floor and took up something. It was a loose native slipper that had slipped from the foot of Leslie’s captor in the hurry of departure. The light he had shown when he searched for this was the light that Peter saw. “Just wait! I’ll call Mr. Coldwell.” Inspector Coldwell was at dinner when the message came. “Hang on, I’ll come down,” he said. “I’ve had a wire from Miss Maughan that she’s going to Plymouth, but that doesn’t mean anything.” He was in the flat twenty minutes later. By this time Peter’s wound had been roughly dressed, and he had washed the stains from his face. Save for the throb of the wound, he was little the worse for his experience. “They coshed you with a rubber club; it is rather a good method,” said Coldwell callously. He looked round the room with pursed lips and a frown. “It doesn’t follow that because those birds were here, she was here,” he said, and glanced at his watch. “Too early for Miss Maughan to have arrived at Plymouth. Just wait! I want to make sure.” He drove to the telegraph office from which the message had been sent, and was fortunate to find the postmaster just leaving his office. “I want to see the telegram that was sent from here about five o’clock to-night addressed to me.” “You want to see the original telegram, I suppose? That won’t be difficult.” It was more difficult than he supposed, and half an hour’s precious time was wasted before the pencilled form was produced. Coldwell had only to glance at the writing to know that it was not in Leslie’s hand. Yet a woman had written it; that was obvious from the characteristic writing. He returned to the flat and sent the detective in a cab to Scotland Yard and Peter employed this interval to tell him of what he had found in Mrs. Inglethorne’s box. “I pretty well guess that,” said Inspector Coldwell. “So did Leslie--Miss Maughan. ‘The son’ meant nothing. This unfortunate lady had intended to keep the child with her if it was a girl, and that was not the wish of the gang who were bleeding her. They told her she had a son. But I’m going to make sure about that before we go any further. Somehow I’m not so scared about Leslie Maughan as I ought to be perhaps. She’s got a sort of gun.” A quarter of an hour later, his cab drew up before the gloomy doors of Holloway Prison and after a strict scrutiny of his credentials he was admitted and conducted to one of the main halls of the jail, where the remand prisoners were housed. The chief wardress opened the door and went in. Presently she came out and beckoned him into the cell. Mrs. Inglethorne was sitting, a scowl on her face, her big, raw hands clasped before her. She knew Coldwell, and lifted her lip in a grin of rage. “Don’t you come in here!” she said shrilly. “I’m not going to talk to you. If you want to find that kid, you go and find her! And that’ll take you some time, I’ll bet!”