“Now, young lady, put on your hat and be lively!” He followed her up the stairs into her room and watched her while she found a hat and a cloak. She knew only too well that it was a waste of time even to temporize with him. He, for his part, was so exultant at his success that he grew almost loquacious. “I suppose you saw the boys driving away and you didn’t remember that I was somewhere around? Was that you doing the shooting?” She did not answer. “It couldn’t have been Lew, or you’d have been dead,” he said. He was examining the muzzle of the pistol. “It was you all right.” He chuckled. “Ain’t you the game one! Sister, you ought to be——” He stopped dead, staring through the window. He was paralysed with amazement at the sight of a bare-headed Aunt Alma flying along the Gloucester Road. With an oath he turned to the girl. “How did she get out? Have you got anybody here? Now speak up.” “The cupboard under the stairs leads to the wine cellar,” said Mirabelle coolly, “and there are two ways out of the wine cellar. I think Aunt Alma found one of them.” With an oath, he took a step towards her, gripped her by the arm and jerked her towards the door. “Lively!” he said, and dragged her down the stairs through the hall, into the kitchen. He shot back the bolts, but the lock of the kitchen door had been turned. “This way.” He swore cold-bloodedly, and, her arm still in his powerful grip, he hurried along the passage and pulled open the door. It was an unpropitious moment. A man was walking down the path, a half-smile on his face, as though he was thinking over a remembered jest. At the sight of him the pedlar dropped the girl’s arm and his hand went like lightning to his pocket. “When will you die?” said Leon Gonsalez softly. “Make a choice, and make it quick!” And the gun in his hand seemed to quiver with homicidal eagerness. _Chapter XV_ _Two “Accidents”_ THE pedlar, his face twitching, put up his shaking hands. Leon walked to him, took the Browning from his moist grip and dropped it into his pocket. “Your friends are waiting, of course?” he said pleasantly. The pedlar did not answer. “Cuccini too? I thought I had incapacitated him for a long time.” “They’ve gone,” growled the pedlar. Gonsalez looked round in perplexity. “I don’t want to take you into the house. At the same time, I don’t want to leave you here,” he said. “I almost wish you’d drawn that gun of yours,” he added regretfully. “It would have solved so many immediate problems.” This particular problem was solved by the return of the dishevelled Alma and the restoration to her of her gun. “I would so much rather you shot him than I,” said Leon earnestly. “The police are very suspicious of my shootings, and they never wholly believe that they are done in self-defence.”