“I don’t know what you mean by your outlandish gibberish,” said the woman’s voice huskily. “You get away, mister, before you’re in trouble.” Michael, thrusting his lamp in the direction of the gate-top, looked up at a row of rusty iron spikes. Should he take the risk? These people might be law-abiding, and it was not remarkable that the woman should have a few Indian phrases. She might have been a soldier’s wife who had lived in India and had acquired the habit of that pigeon talk. “Won’t you be sensible and let me in? I only want to ask you a few questions.” And then, as an inspiration came to him: “I am from Mr. Chesney Praye.” This time the silence was so long that he thought they had gone. Then the woman spoke. “We don’t know Mr. Chesney Praye, and we’re going in.” “We? Who’s your friend?” asked Michael, but there was no answer. Presently the door was slammed ostentatiously. Behind the gates he could hear the growling and snuffling of the dogs, and when he put his toe cautiously under the space between earth and gate he heard the vicious snap of a jaw, and smiled in the darkness. Soon after, the man and woman at the upstairs window heard the whine of a motor and saw the two white beams of its head-lamps moving towards London. And Lois Reddle lay sobbing on her bed, and in her heart the despair of hopelessness. Chapter Twenty-seven Two hours after Michael Dorn had gone, Dr. Tappatt sat in his parlour, his elbows on his knees, his big face cupped in his hands. Beside him was a half-filled tumbler of whisky, and he was gazing into the fire, which was lit for him summer and winter since he had left India. There had been a time when his name had ranked high in the profession of medicine, but an unsavoury incident had driven him from Edinburgh, where, although he was young, he had established an excellent practice, and he found himself in India, with no other assets than his undoubted skill, the meagre remnants of his savings, and a taste for good wine. For a time he had been attached to the court of an Indian prince, and then, in an evil moment, he had conceived the idea of a mental home for wealthy Indians. But for the growing craving for drink he might have retired after a few years, with sufficient to keep him for the rest of his life. But there was a kink somewhere in Dr. Tappatt’s nature and it showed itself only too clearly in his conduct of the home. He had to leave the North-West Provinces in a hurry and settle in Bengal, where there were queer stories about the home he founded there. There were applications at court by the relatives of patients who had been put away by interested people, and in the end his home was closed and he moved into the Punjab. His brilliant brain had been sharpened by conflict with authority, and he had become something of a strategist, for strategy is the art of knowing your enemy’s mind.