“I do not,” said Moriarty. “She’d be laughing at me.” “She’ll not laugh,” said Mr. Goddard. “That’s one thing you may feel quite sure about. Whatever else she does, she’ll not laugh.” “I’m not fit to talk to her,” said Moriarty. “You’re not fit to mend a tyre either,” said Cole; “mind that now. When you have the hole there is in it with a patch on it, and you’re putting back the cover on the wheel you’d nip the inner tube so as there be a bit took out of it.” “Do you take me for a fool?” said Moriarty. “Haven’t I mended----” “I’ll take you for a fool,” said Mr. Goddard, “if you don’t do exactly what you’re told.” “After that,” said Cole, “you’ll have to mend the tyre again; and I’d say, if you’re any kind of good at all, that by the time you’ve done with it it’ll be beyond the help of man in the way of holding the air.” “It’s a great stratagem,” said Lord Manton; “I never heard a better.” “It’s what I was reading in a book one time,” said Cole. “You know the book, sergeant----” “I’ve heard you speaking about it,” said the sergeant, “many a time.” “Well,” said Cole, “that stratagem was in it. It was a young fellow that was off with a girl that he was wishing to marry and her father was after them. It was bicycles they had. And the young fellow gave half a crown to the man in the hotel to do the like to the old chap’s bicycle the way he’d get off with the girl.” “Whether the idea is absolutely original or not,” said Lord Manton, “you deserve the greatest credit for applying it to this particular case.” “It was in my mind,” said Cole, “and I just said to myself that maybe, if I didn’t forget it, it might come in handy some day.” “At the latter end,” said Moriarty, “she’ll be asking where the sergeant is.” “At the latter end,” said Mr. Goddard, “when the bicycle’s quite past mending, you can tell her that he was obliged to start to Rosivera without her and take Cole along with him.” “She’ll have the face ate off me when I do,” said Moriarty. “If she does,” said Mr. Goddard, “it won’t make much matter to you or any one else. The new one you’ll get can’t be worse to look at than the one you have.” “I don’t know,” said Sergeant Farrelly, “how will the sergeant’s wife at Ballymoy like having them tricks played with her bicycle. She’s a cousin of my own.” He had never had a high opinion of Cole’s stratagems, and it pained him to have to listen to the praise bestowed on this one. “She can get a new tyre,” said Mr. Goddard; “and serve her jolly well right for lending her bicycle to Miss Blow. She ought to have had more sense.” A few minutes later Lord Manton and Mr. Goddard entered the commercial room of the hotel. They had with them a warrant for the arrest of Theodore Guy Red of Rosivera on a charge of wilful murder. They spread this out on the table and invited Miss Blow to inspect it. She did so, scanning every line carefully. “It’s not signed,” she said.