"Oh! It's Mr. Aguilar--returned!" she said, quietly. "Is anything the matter, Mr. Aguilar?" Aguilar, hat in hand, entered the room. "Good afternoon, Aguilar," Audrey greeted him. "'Noon, madam," he responded, exactly as though he had been expecting to find the mistress there. "It's like this. I've just seen Inspector Keeble and that there detective as was here afore--_you_ know, madam" (nodding to Audrey) "and I fancy they're a-coming this way, so I thought I'd better cut back and warn ye. I don't think they saw me. I was too quick for 'em. Was the bread-and-butter all right, Miss Ingate? Thank ye." Miss Ingate had risen. "I ought to go home," she said. "I feel sure it would be wiser for me to go home. I never could talk to detectives." Jane Foley snatched at one of the four cups and saucers on the table, and put it back, all unwashed, into the china cupboard. "Three cups will be enough for them to see, if they come," she said, with a bright, happy smile to Audrey. "Yes, Miss Ingate, you go home. I'm ever so much obliged to you. Now, I'll go upstairs and Aguilar shall lock me in the tank-room and push the key under the door. We are causing you a lot of trouble, Mrs. Moncreiff, but you won't mind. It might have been so much worse." She laughed as she went. "And suppose I meet those police on the way out, what am I to say to them?" asked Miss Ingate when Jane Foley and Aguilar had departed. "If they're very curious, tell them you've been here to have tea with me and that Aguilar cut the bread-and-butter," Audrey replied. "The detective will be interested to see me. He chased me all the way to London not long since. Au revoir, Winnie." "Dear friend," said Madame Piriac, with admirable though false calm. "Would it not be more prudent to fly back at once to the yacht--if in truth this is the same police agent of whom you recounted to me with such drollness the exploits? It is not that I am afraid----" "Nor I," said Audrey. "There is no danger except to Jane Foley." "Ah! You cannot abandon her. That is true. Nevertheless I regret ..." "Well, darling," Audrey exclaimed. "You would insist on my coming!" The continuing presence of Miss Ingate, who had lost one glove and her purse, rendered this brief conversation somewhat artificial. And no sooner had Miss Ingate got away--by the window, for the sake of dispatch--than a bell made itself heard, and Aguilar came back to the drawing-room in the rôle of butler. "Inspector Keeble and a gentleman to see you, madam." "Bring them in," said Audrey. Aguilar's secret glance at Inspector Keeble as he brought in the visitors showed that his lifelong and harmless enemy had very little to hope from his goodwill. "Wait a moment, you!" called the detective as Aguilar, like a perfect butler, was vanishing. "Good afternoon, ladies. Excuse me, I wish to question this man." He indicated Aguilar with a gesture of apologising for Aguilar.