“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Lord Manton. “We’ll make a descent in force on Rosivera to-morrow. You shall collect all the police you possibly can, fifty of them, if there are fifty available. We’ll take all the ladies interested in the matter in my waggonette. Jimmy O’Loughlin and I will accompany the army in the capacity of civil magistrates, each of us armed with a Riot Act and a writ of Habeas Corpus. We’ll make that fellow Red sit up if he’s been at any games.” “I really think we’ll have to. It seems very absurd, but what else are we to do? I’ve been harried with telegrams from everybody in Dublin Castle all day. The Inspector-General is coming down here to-morrow, though I don’t see what on earth he thinks he’ll be able to do.” “We’ll forestall him,” said Lord Manton. “He can’t possibly get here before noon. We’ll start at eleven A.M. sharp. We’ll have the mystery, whatever it is, probed to its inmost recesses before he gets at it. The whole credit will be yours, Goddard.” “I’ll make any one that likes a present of the credit.” “In the meanwhile,” said Lord Manton, “you’d better sleep here. I expect Jimmy O’Loughlin’s hotel is pretty well full up.” “Thanks,” said Mr. Goddard. “The fact is, I don’t particularly care about going back to the village to-night.” “Will they be waiting up for you?” “They will.” “Miss Blow,” said Lord Manton, “is a wonderful woman.” “She’s not bad looking,” said Mr. Goddard magnanimously, “but she’s rather----” “I know what you’re going to say--vehement, wasn’t that it? A good deal of life force about her? I quite agree with you. Now, what do you think? Supposing it turns out that the man Red has really been up to any kind of tricks; supposing he’s engaged in a business of kidnapping dispensary doctors, blacksmiths, Members of Parliament and policemen, for the purpose of shipping them off as slaves to the Sultan of Zanzibar. I don’t say for certain that that’s exactly what he’s doing. I don’t know yet. But if he’s at anything of the sort it would serve him jolly well right if we made him marry Miss Blow.” “He wouldn’t do it.” “He might. He seems to be a man of adventurous disposition. If he doesn’t like her, we could offer him Miss Farquharson.” “I should think he’d refuse them both. He’d see Miss Farquharson, and he’d be absolutely certain to hear Miss Blow.” “I think we could put pressure on him,” said Lord Manton. “In fact, it would be a choice for him between marrying and a criminal prosecution. A man can’t kidnap people in this wholesale sort of way without suffering for it. He’ll understand that when we put it to him. But you’ve had an exhausting day, Goddard, and I dare say you’d like to toddle up to bed. Wilkins will leave you whatever you want. We’ll have a great time to-morrow, raiding Rosivera.” CHAPTER XXIII