A few minutes after Ephraim Jenkins had left the house, and before his wife had checked her tears and resumed her composure sufficiently to present herself before Helen, Bryan Duval and Thornton Carey arrived. They were accompanied by two persons of grave exterior and formal manner, with that peculiar stamp upon them which distinguishes the police-officer, whether of Scotland-yard, or the Rue Jérusalem, or the Tombs; calm men, lean and inscrutable, to whom the atmosphere of crime and difficulty was air naturally breathed, and on which they throve in a not jubilant, but nevertheless satisfactory, sort of way. 'It gave me a dreadful turn, my dear,' said Mrs. Jenkins to Miss Montressor, 'when they came in. I was just crossing the hall and going up-stairs with baby, and I cannot tell you what a curious feeling it was, and how glad I was my Ephraim was out of the house.' 'Why, what on earth had your Ephraim been doing, that you should be afraid of two police-officers?' said Miss Montressor, who was not easily impressed by sentimental imaginations. 'He hadn't been doing anything,' returned her sister rather indignantly; 'but they had such an extraordinary manner about them, as though everything in the place belonged to them, and after they came in our souls were not our own, that I assure you I felt as if I had been doing something that I might be taken up for, and every one of the servants might have been stealing the plate, to judge by their looks. As for Annette, she disappeared altogether. Mrs. Griswold wanted her to find some keys for her, and I had to go up-stairs and cause her to come out of her room, where she was double-locked in, as if there were a warrant out for her.' 'Silly French idiot!' said Miss Montressor parenthetically. 'I should rather like to have a look at these police-officers. I have seen our magistrates at home, you know, at least some of them--beaks, they call them--remarkably jolly and good-natured men, I thought.' 'Then, you see, you were not a prisoner, my dear,' said Mrs. Jenkins. 'Well, no more are you, nor any other people in the house. What a set of geese you all are!' 'You're so strong-minded, Clara; and it is uncomfortable, and always seems like bad luck somehow, when any of these people come about a quiet, well-conducted house.' 'Ah,' said Miss Montressor, with a very genuine sigh, 'the bad luck has come in here before the police, not with them, and it will stay after them. Poor creature, how is she?' 'She received the gentlemen quite calm and quiet,' said Mrs. Jenkins; 'but of course I don't know anything, since I was only a minute in the room.'