In a few seconds the discomfited guard was bound and gagged. The pedlar, crawling to the entrance of the loft, looked out between a crevice in the boards. He was watching not the house, but the hedge through which he had climbed. Two other men had appeared there, and he grunted his satisfaction. Descending into the barn, he pulled away the ladder and let it fall on the floor, before he came out into the open and made a signal. The second guard had made his way back by the shortest cut to the front of the house, passing through the garden and in through the kitchen door. He stopped to shoot the bolts, and the girl, coming into the kitchen, saw him. “Is anything wrong?” she asked anxiously. “I don’t know, miss.” He was looking at the kitchen windows: they were heavily barred. “My mate has just seen that pedlar go into the barn.” She followed him to the front door. He had turned to go, but, changing his mind, came back, and she saw him put his hand into his hip pocket and was staggered to see him produce a long-barrelled Browning. “Can you use a pistol, miss?” She nodded, too surprised to speak, and watched him as he jerked back the jacket and put up the safety catch. “I want to be on the safe side, and I’d feel happier if you were armed.” There was a gun hanging on the wall and he took it down. “Have you any shells for this?” he asked. She pulled open the drawer of the hall-stand and took out a cardboard carton. “They may be useful,” he said. “But surely, Mr.——” “Digby.” He supplied his name. “Surely you’re exaggerating? I don’t mean that you’re doing it with any intention of frightening me, but there isn’t any danger to us?” “I don’t know. I’ve got a queer feeling—had it all morning. How far is the nearest house from here?” “Not half a mile away,” she said. “You’re on the ’phone?” She nodded. “I’m scared, maybe. I’ll just go out into the road and have a look round. I wish that fellow would come back,” he added fretfully. He walked slowly up the garden path and stood for a moment leaning over the gate. As he did so, he heard the rattle and asthmatic wheezing of an ancient car, and saw a tradesman’s trolley come round a corner of Heavytree Lane. Its pace grew slower as it got nearer to the house, and opposite the gate it stopped altogether. The driver getting down with a curse, lifted up the battered tin bonnet, and, groping under the seat, brought out a long spanner. Then, swift as thought, he half turned and struck at Digby’s head. The girl heard the sickening impact, saw the watcher drop limply to the path, and in another second she had slammed the door and thrust home the bolts. She was calm; the hand that took the revolver from the hall-table did not tremble. “Alma!” she called, and Alma came running downstairs. “What on earth——?” she began, and then saw the pistol in Mirabelle’s hands.