Inspector Keeble, an overgrown mass of rectitude and kindliness, greeted Audrey with that constraint which always afflicted him when he was beneath any roof more splendid than that of his own police-station. "Now, Aguilar," said the detective, "it's you that'll be telling me. Ye've got a woman concealed in the house. Where is she?" He knew, then, this ferreting and divinatory Irishman! Of course Miss Ingate must have committed some indiscretion, or was it that Aguilar was less astute than he gave the impression of being? Audrey considered that all was lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling of helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive inspiration and optimism from somewhere. She knew not exactly from where, but perhaps it was from the shy stiffness of the demeanour of her old acquaintance, Inspector Keeble. Moreover, the Irishman's twinkling eyes were a challenge to her. "Oh! Aguilar!" she exclaimed. "I'm very sorry to hear this. I knew women were always your danger, but I never dreamt you would start carrying on in my absence." Aguilar fronted her, and their eyes met. Audrey gazed at him steadily. There was no smile in Audrey's eyes, but there was a smile glimmering mysteriously behind them, and after a couple of seconds this phenomenon aroused a similar phenomenon behind the eyes of Aguilar. Audrey had the terrible and god-like sensation of lifting a hired servant to equality with herself. She imagined that she would never again be able to treat him as Aguilar, and she even feared that she would soon begin to cease to hate him. At the same time she observed slight signs of incertitude in the demeanour of the detective. Aguilar replied coldly, not to Audrey, but to the police: "If Inspector Keeble or anybody else has been mixing my name up with any scandal about females, I'll have him up for slander and libel and damages as sure as I stand here." Inspector Keeble looked away, and then looked at the detective--as if for support in peril. "Do you mean to say, Aguilar, that you haven't got a woman hidden in the house at this very moment?" the detective demanded. "I'll thank ye to keep a civil tongue in your head," said Aguilar. "Or I'll take ye outside and knock yer face sideways. Pardon me, madam. Of course I ain't got no woman concealed on the premises. And mark ye, if I lose my place through this ye'll hear of it. And I shall put a letter in the _Gardeners' Chronicle_, too." "Well, ye can go," the detective responded. "Yes," sneered Aguilar. "I can go. Yes, and I shall go. But not so far but what I can protect my interests. And I'll make this village too hot for Keeble before I've done, police or no police." And with a look at Audrey like the look of a knight at his lady after a joust, Aguilar turned to leave the room. "Aguilar," Audrey rewarded him. "You needn't be afraid about your place." "Thank ye, m'm."