Then she turned her back on Miss Blow, who sat next her, and looked with great interest at the horses. Mr. Goddard leaned across the waggonette and whispered to Lord Manton. “What do you mean to do when we get to the hotel?” “Hush!” said Lord Manton. Miss Blow’s eyes were fixed on him, and he felt that confidences were dangerous. Jimmy O’Loughlin greeted the party at the door of his hotel. He was surprised to see them. He was still more surprised when Lord Manton demanded the use of a private sitting-room. “There’s the commercial room,” he said, “and there’s the drawing-room. You can have the two of them if I you like, for there isn’t a soul stopping in the house this minute barring the doctor’s young lady. It’ll be better, maybe, for you to take the commercial room by reason of there being a key to the door, so as you’ll be able to lock it if you heard Bridgy coming along the passage.” “What are you going to do now?” said Mr. Goddard, catching Lord Manton by the arm, as the ladies entered the commercial room. “I’m going to persuade Jimmy O’Loughlin to sign the warrant, if I possibly can,” said Lord Manton. “He’ll not do it. Jimmy O’Loughlin’s not a born fool.” “Then I’m afraid,” said Lord Manton, “that you’ll have to arrest the man Red without a warrant.” “I won’t,” said Mr. Goddard. “Send the sergeant, then.” “I won’t.” “Couldn’t you send the sergeant and a constable and tell them to inquire civilly of Mr. Red whether he’d seen anything of the Members of Parliament? It’s quite a natural thing to ask. They passed his gate yesterday, and he might have seen them. We could give the sergeant some sort of a blue paper in the presence of Miss Blow and pretend that he was going to make the arrest.” “That’s no good,” said Mr. Goddard. “She said she’d go and see the arrest made herself, and she’ll do it.” “Send the men on bicycles,” said Lord Manton, “then she won’t be able to keep up with them.” “The objection to that is that she has a bicycle herself. I don’t know how she got it, but she rode over on it from Ballymoy this morning. Moriarty might get ahead of her, but she’d knock spots out of the sergeant in a race; he’s fat.” “Jimmy O’Loughlin,” said Lord Manton, “come here.” Jimmy was leaning in a careless attitude against the doorpost of his hotel. He appeared to be entirely uninterested in what was going on, and was surprised when Lord Manton called him. “Jimmy O’Loughlin,” said Lord Manton, “Mr. Goddard is sending a couple of police over to Rosivera to see if there’s any news there of the gentlemen that have got lost, and he doesn’t want Miss Blow to go with them. Can you think of any way of stopping her?” “Her mind’s made up to go,” said Mr. Goddard. Jimmy meditated on the problem. “If so be,” he said at last, “that I could get the boots off of her, and had them hid in the haggard where she wouldn’t find them easy, she couldn’t go.” “She could not,” said Mr. Goddard. “But how do you propose to get them off her?”