He scratched his nose thoughtfully. She couldn't possibly have got out of the enclosure without seeing the car--it would have been a physical impossibility. Then, where had she disappeared? Inside the aerodrome, a half-dozen guards and workmen were piling up the collapsed timbers of the staging. But he couldn't see a skirt anywhere. He wondered if she could have been struck or injured by the falling debris? No; her body would, in that event, be quite visible. He grew more and more puzzled. She was either inside or outside the enclosure, he reasoned closely--and she wasn't inside. She couldn't have got outside without seeing him or being seen. "I'm really worried about her," came Mrs. Tassifer's voice plaintively from within the vehicle. And then Bentham suddenly slapped his leg and uttered a whoop of surprise, consternation, and baffled rage. With his right fist raised in imprecation toward the Milky Way, the assistant solicitor of the Department of Justice descended with astonishing agility to the ground and thrust his head into the open window of the car. "She's done it!" he yelled retributively. "Done what?" demanded Mrs. Tassifer. "Gone along with 'em! Up there!" He pointed vaguely in the direction taken by the Ring. "Oh," protested his wife, in a shocked tone, "she hasn't! She _wouldn't_ have! Why, it wouldn't be proper--she, an unmarried woman, alone with three strange men! I'd never be able to look any of my friends in the face again. You must be mistaken, Bentham." "Well, she has, all right!" he replied vindictively. "That's just exactly what she's done. I always said she wasn't all there--rooms to let--bats in her belfry--balmy on the crumpet. And now she's proved it! I'm glad she isn't _my_ niece! All right, driver; you may start along." III