"I daresay I'm a kind of genteel prisoner," ran her thoughts. "If I attempted to go where those ugly eyes of his couldn't follow me, he might be for ordering me back, for fear I should be giving warning to the master that they are here. Well, we can do nothing; it is in Heaven's hands: better they came in to-day than yesterday!" Mr. Detective Strange had rarely felt surer of anything than he was that he should find Philip Salter in bed, and capture him without the slightest difficulty in his sick state. It was not so to be. Very much to his amazement, there appeared to be no sign whatever of a sick man in the place. The rooms were all put in order for the day, the beds made; nothing was different from what it had been at the time of his previous entrance. Seek as he would, his practised eye could find no trace--nay, no possibility--of any hidden chamber. In fact, there was none. "Where the deuce can the fellow be?" mused Mr. Strange, gazing about him with a thoughtful air. The underground places were visited with as little success, though the search he made was minute and careful. He could not understand it. That Salter had not been allowed time to escape out of doors, so rapid was their first approach, he knew; but, nevertheless, the trees and grounds were well examined. Hopley lifted his poor bent back from his work in the celery-bed--from which, as the watching policeman could have testified, he had not stirred at all--to touch his straw hat when the detective passed. Mr. Strange answered by a nod, but did not accost him. To question the deaf old man would be only waste of time. There was some mystery about all this; a mystery he--even he--could not at present fathom. Just one possibility crossed his mind and was exceedingly unwelcome--that Salter, alarmed by the stir that was being made, had in truth got away. Got away, in spite of the precautions that he, Strange, in conjunction with the police of Basham, had been for the past day or two taking, secretly and unobserved. He did not believe it. He did not wish to believe it. And, in truth, it seemed to him not to be possible, for more reasons than one. A man in the condition of health hinted at by Dr. Cavendish would be in no state for travelling. But still--with the Maze turned, as he honestly believed, inside out, and showing no signs or trace of Salter, where was he? This took up some time. Ann Hopley had got her preparations for dinner forward, had answered the butcher's bell and taken in the meat: and by and by went across the garden again to cut two cauliflowers. She was coming back with them in her apron, when Mr. Strange met her, and spoke. "I have a question or two to put to you, Mrs. Hopley, which I must desire of you to answer--and to answer correctly. Otherwise I shall be obliged to summon you before the magistrates and compel your answers on your oath. If you are wise you will avoid giving me and yourself that trouble."