Malone rubbed his head, ruefully. "My hat won't fit for a few days, I guess. Got a lump like an ostrich egg on my head. Last thing I was thinking of was that sort of trouble. I was leaning against a tree smoking a pipe and keeping a quiet eye on the house when an earthquake hit me. Oh, someone laid me out good and proper. When I came to I was in the dark and tied up so that I couldn't wink. That's all I knew till some of the local police found me half an hour ago. I heard shots while I was lying there and I got the wind up when we found you were missing." The local superintendent of the County Constabulary welcomed Labar eagerly. Episodes of this kind were rare among the placid routine of work in a country district. He was a lean, tall, not unintelligent man, with mild watery eyes, and a gruff voice. Although nominally his rank was superior, the advent of a chief detective inspector from Scotland Yard was something of an event. He gripped Labar's hand sturdily. "Glad to meet you. Perhaps we'll be able to twist some sense out of this nightmare now. You don't know what's happened to Mrs. Gertstein, I suppose?" "She's gone?" exclaimed the inspector. "Well, I might have expected it." "Well, you know more about it than we do," said the local man. "Mr. Malone tells me that you were on some inquiries about the Streetly House robbery when these people butted in. Do you think they have done any harm to Mrs. Gertstein?" "I don't think that likely," said Labar. He pushed his hand through the other's arm and led him aside. "Look here," he said. "This woman will be wanted for a crime which has no direct connection with the Streetly House burglary. She's probably absconded of her own free will. Now this business is bound to be the talk of the countryside, what with the servants and the men you have brought here. I want it to be regarded outside, as merely a daring raid by armed bandits, whose motives are as much a mystery to us as to anyone else. Can you give your men that impression?" "Easiest thing in the world. Since I do not know anything myself, it ought to be simple to pretend that I'm bewildered." "Thank you. I'll try and handle the servants. There's some things I am still in the dark about, myself."