I handed her over to my wife’s keeping with no more comment than that she was badly shaken in nerve. There might have been a noticeable contraction of sympathy if Barbara, who had superfluously ventured into this maelstrom through loyalty to me, heard that Sonia had run for her life and left her blind husband to extricate herself from the danger in which she had involved him. “I’m just going to meet Raney,” I said. “He’s expecting us either in Dean’s Yard or Seymour Street.” “If we’ve gone before you come back, it’ll mean that he’s found us first,” said Barbara. “Then you’ll come home independently. Take care of yourself.” “It’s all over now. Even the fog’s almost gone.” 7 As I returned to The Sanctuary for the last time, I could see—even without my glasses—from one lamp-post to the next. The narrow streets north of Smith Square were almost empty; and I could hardly blame a routed enemy for shying from such sinister avenues of escape. There were more and more people as I drew nearer to the Embankment, all of them rather dazed and many wounded. I saw no dead, though stretchers were being hurried up as I came in sight of The Sanctuary; and of the battle there was no other sound than a rapid scurry of feet towards Westminster Bridge and Vauxhall. At the corner of Sanctuary Road I was challenged and stopped by a policeman. “I’m looking for the gentleman whose house has been attacked,” I explained. “I’ve got his family in a car near by; but he’s unfortunately blind, and I don’t want him to miss them.” I was allowed through; and, a moment later, I stood in the midst of one of the strangest scenes that I have witnessed. To see, to smell and to touch, it was a blend of shambles and distillery under the combined influence of earthquake and fire. The ground was in places waist-deep with stones; for twenty feet round the house I heard the glass crackling as I walked. More than once I slipped in an ominous pool of blood; and the air was sickly with the smell of whisky and singed clothing. I whistled and called O’Rane’s name, but there was no answer. Every approach was now guarded by police; and on either side of the cordon I heard scuffling as the last unyielding attackers were put under arrest. In the middle of the open square, the wounded were laid out to await the ambulances. I borrowed a lantern and flashed it down the lines, but there was no one remotely resembling Raney. “I’m going to try the house now,” I told the policeman nearest the stables. “If you’ll give me a leg up, I can get over the wall and up the fire escape.” There was no one in the yard, no one in the house. As a last hope, I interrogated two or three of the constables; but, if any of them had found time to notice anything my description did not help to identify one half-seen figure in a surging crowd of many thousands.