The front room was now blazing. He tried the housekeeper’s room: that also was empty. There was no need for further search. Dr. Tappatt had got away, and with him the unhappy mother of Lois. He rejoined the girl and she told him what had happened before he came into the room. “That is it,” he said bitterly. “The doctor was listening at the door and, thinking he was going to be left in the lurch, decided to make his getaway. When Praye turned your mother from the room he must have put her into the car, and probably unfastened the gate when he heard the fight.” “Where will he have taken her? What will happen?” she asked fearfully. Her nerve had gone, and she clung to him like a frightened child, and as he held the quivering figure in his arms, the world and all its sordid horrors dropped away from him and for a second he lived in a heaven of happiness. “Child, child!” His hand trembled as it touched her cheek. “Your mother is not in danger--they dare not.” “I am an hysterical fool!” she sobbed as she rubbed her face against his coat. “But, Michael, I am so frightened. What will happen to my mother?” “Nothing; they will not dare injure her.” The fire had taken hold; great tongues of flame were leaping up from the roof. “It will burn like tinder. I’m sorry.” “Sorry?” she said, in surprise. “I mean I’m sorry to see property destroyed. I don’t suppose it is insured,” was his strange reply. “I’ll pull the Buick out of the shed before the fire gets to it.” As they were walking across the yard to the extemporised garage, he caught her arm and drew her from the path, and, looking down, she saw the stiff figure of a dog. “I had to shoot them,” he said. “I used a silencer, because I thought the doctor would hear.” “But they told me you were dead?” “I’ll tell you about it some day,” he answered briefly, and gave his whole attention to breaking the lock of the shed. Presently he hauled out the car and examined the petrol tank. “There is enough to get us to the nearest village,” he said; “the spare tin is full.” He got the car round to the front of the house, and was standing watching the havoc of the flames when the first police cyclist came thunderously from the direction of Whitcombe. “Nobody is hurt except me,” said Michael in answer to the man’s enquiry, “and in my case it is only a question of feelings. You didn’t pass a car on your way?” “Yes, I passed a big car, with three or four people in it.” “Which way did they go?” “They took the Newbury Road.” “Then we also will take the Newbury Road,” said Michael. On the journey back to London he told Lois what had happened to him.