Who so surprised and plausible as she? Why--her father is the only man in the house, and him on his back this fifteen years or more! What's more, he doesn't wear an opal ring. Nor any ring at all, for that matter! But come in and see. Look all over the house if desired. _She_ won't stand in the way. "Our instruction is to search," says the officer. He looks like a sub-inspector, and is evidently what a malefactor would consider a "bad man" to have anything to do with. Miss Hawkins knows that her right of sanctuary, if any, is a feeble claim, probably overruled by some police regulation; and invites the officers into the house, almost too demonstratively. Just then she suddenly recollects that pipe. "You can find your way in, mister," she says; and goes through to the bar. The moment she does so the officer shows alacrity. "Keep an eye to that cellar-flap, Jacomb," he says to his mate, and follows the lady of the house. He is only just in time. "Is that your father's pipe?" he asks. In another moment she would have hidden it. "Which pipe?--oh, this pipe?--_this_ pipe ain't nothing. Left stood overnight, I suppose." And she paused to think of the best means of getting the pipe suppressed. There was no open grate in the bar to throw it behind. She was a poor liar, too, and was losing her head. "Give me hold a quarter of a minute," says the officer. She cannot refuse to give the pipe up. "Someone's had a whiff off this pipe since closing-time last night," he continues, touching the still warm bowl; for all this had passed very quickly. And he actually puts the pipe to his lips, and in two or three draws works up its lingering spark. "A good mouthful of smoke," says he, blowing it out in a cloud. "You can look where you like," mutters the woman sullenly. "There's no man for you. Only you won't want to disturb my father. He's only just fell asleep." "He'll be sleeping pretty sound after fifteen year." Thus the officer, and the unhappy woman felt she had indeed made a complete mess of the case. "Which is his room now, ma'am? We'll go there first." Up the stairs and past a window looking on the garden. The day is hot beneath the July sun, and the two men in uniform who are coming up the so-called garden, or rather gravelled yard, behind The Pigeons, are mopping the sweat from their brows. They might have been customers from the river, but Miss Hawkins knows the look of them too well for that. The house is surrounded--watched back and front. Escape is hopeless, successful concealment the only chance.