"The police are prepared to accept all responsibility," Field said drily. "There is one little matter that I have to clear up, and that is your identity. As it is not a cold night you are not likely to suffer for the want of your wig." Dexterously Field snatched away wig and hat and glasses, and Richford stood exposed. He was about to say something when all attention was arrested by a sound from the house. It was a clear, crisp sound, the ring of a revolver shot. "Look to your prisoners!" said Field crisply. "I am going into the house." CHAPTER XXXVI Meanwhile Berrington had stepped aside after having arranged to give Field the signal. And Berrington had made a discovery, the importance of which it was impossible to overestimate. For the moment it had almost deprived him of the power of thinking about anything else, but now it came to him that Beatrice might be in some little danger. In the first place, the girl was in possession of a parcel of valuable diamonds, the possession of which the others knew of and coveted. The rascals were in a tight place now, and they would not stick at much to make their escape. If they were short of funds the diamonds in Beatrice's pocket would come in useful. But Berrington, like the cool soldier that he was, had decided not to spoil the thing by an eager haste. There was plenty of assistance outside, and besides, he had a trusty revolver in his pocket. He stood now in the hall where he was in a position to hear all that was going on. Beatrice had rushed to the door and beat her hands upon it. She was pulled away more or less roughly by the man called Reggie, but she did not seem to notice it. "Am I mad or dreaming?" she said as she pressed her hands to her forehead. "I could have sworn that I heard a voice calling me, a voice----" "All nonsense," said Sartoris hoarsely. "You are overstrung, and your imagination is too real for you. Did any of the rest of you hear a voice?" The other two denied that they had heard anything. Beatrice broke out scornfully---- "It is a lie," she said. "You all heard it. Everybody heard it. If not, why are you all so white, and why do you all look so curiously at one another?" It was quite true, and Sartoris had no reply for the moment. He seemed to be struggling to regain his lost self-possession. Then he glanced at the man called Reggie, who shrugged his shoulders. Sartoris was himself again by this time. "It was certainly an effect of the imagination," he cried. "Let us talk of other things. My dear young lady, my friends here have been good enough to betray the fact that you have a lot of valuable diamonds in your pocket. Is that a fact?" Beatrice scorned to lie, and now in any case it would have been useless. She looked from one to the other and wondered what had become of Berrington. Berrington was listening outside the door and feeling that the time for him to interfere was close at hand. "It is exactly as these people say," Beatrice admitted.