Ten minutes later the colonel and the major began another game of croquet, and five minutes after that, came from the house Smithers, with a butterfly net in his hand. Jones left the arbour and joined Smithers. "The sovereigns have come," said Jones. "The bag of sovereigns?" "Yes, with a big red seal from the bankers. I'm going to give you fifty." "Oh, Lord," said Smithers, "but you haven't said anything to Hoover?" "Not a word--but you must do something for me before I give you them." "What's that?" "I want you to go up to Colonel Hawker and take him aside." "Yes?" "And tell him that Major Barstowe says he's a liar." "Yes." "That's all." "That's easy enough," said Smithers. "I'll stand by the wall here, and if any of the girls look over, as they probably will, for I'm going to whistle to them, I'll make them come over and toss for sovereigns." "That would be a lark," said the unfortunate. "Bother," said Jones, "I've forgot." "What?" "All my sovereigns are upstairs in the bag--I know--lend me yours whilst I'm waiting." "I--I never lend sovereigns," said Smithers. "Why, I'm going to _give_ you fifty--and I only ask you to lend me five for a moment in case those girls--" Smithers put his hand in his pocket and produced the coins; they were in a little chamois leather bag. "Don't open the bag," said he, "just shake it and they'll know there are sovereigns in it by the noise." "Right," said Jones. "Now go and tell Colonel Hawker that Major Barstowe says he's a liar." Smithers went off, butterfly net in hand. Jones was under no delusion. He reckoned that the garden was always under surveillance, and that a man getting over a wall would have little chance of reaching the street, unless he managed to distract the attention of watchers. He thought it probable that his conversation with Smithers had been watched, and possibly the handing over of some article noted. There was a seat just here, close to the wall. He sat down on it, pulled his cap over his eyes, and stretched out his legs. Then under the peak of the cap, he watched Smithers approaching Colonel Hawker, interrupt him just as he was on the point of making a stroke, and lead him aside. The effect on the colonel's mind of the interruption to his stroke, followed by the sudden information that his veracity had been impeached, was miraculous and sudden as the slap on the side of the face that sent the butterfly hunter flying. The attack on Barstowe, who seemed to fight well, the cries, the shouts, the imprecations, the fact that half a dozen people, inmates and attendants, joined in the confusion as if by magic, all this was nothing to Jones, nor was the subsidiary fact that one of the inmates, a quiet mannered clergyman, with a taste for arson, had taken advantage of the confusion and was patiently and sedulously at work, firing the thatch of the summer house in six different places, with a long concealed box of matches.