"Been on his back like that for fifteen years, has he?" So says the officer looking at the prostrate figure of the old man on the couch. He is not asleep now--far from it. His mouth begins to move, uttering jargon. His one living eye has light in it. There is something he wants to say and struggles for in vain. "Can't make much out of that," is the verdict of his male hearer. His daughter can say that he is asking his visitor's name and what he wants. He can understand when spoken to, she says. But the intruder is pointing at the door leading to the roof. "Where does that go to?" he asks. "Out on the tiles. I'll see for the key and let you through, if you'll stop a minute." It is the only good bit of acting she has done. Perhaps despair gives histrionic power. She sees a chance of deferring the breaking-down of that door, and who knows what may hang on a few minutes of successful delay? Before she goes she suggests again that the paralysed man will understand what is said to him if spoke to plain. Clearly, he who speaks plain to him will do a good-natured act. Whether the officer's motives are Samaritan or otherwise, he takes the hint. As the woman gets out of hearing, he says:--"You are the master of this house, I take it?" And his hearer's crippled mouth half succeeds in its struggle for an emphatic assent. He continues:--"In course you are. I'm Sub-Inspector Cardwell, N Division. There's a man concealed in your house I'm after. He's wanted.... Who is he?"--a right guess of an unintelligible question--"You mean what name does he go by? Well--his name's Daverill, but he's called Thornton or Wix as may be. P'r'aps you know him, sir?" Whether or no, the name has had effect electrically on its hearer, who struggles frantically--painfully--hopelessly for speech. The officer says commiseratingly:--"Poor devil!--he's quite off his jaw"; and then, going to the open window, calls out to his mates of the river-service, below in the garden:--"Keep an eye on the roof, boys." Then he goes out on the stair-landing. That woman is too long away--it is out of all reason. As he passes the paralytic man, he notes that he seems to be struggling violently for something--either to speak or to rise. He cannot tell which, and he does best to hasten the return of the woman who can.