I felt myself changing color, and: 

“For heaven’s sake say no more!” I interrupted.  “It is a gruesome and horrible thought!  Yet, perhaps you are right.  What must we do, Gatton?  These people have rendered the neighborhood uninhabitable for themselves, now, and—­”

Dimly to my ears came the sound of a gun-shot.

“And have fled!” cried Gatton, springing up.  “Quick! we must chance the gas!”

“Why?  What was that shot?”

“A signal!  Dr. Damar Greefe and ‘the cat’ have escaped!”

He raced out across the landing, amid a chorus of frightened inquiries from the inn staff.  I followed him into a front room, and: 

“This comes of turning my attention elsewhere for half an hour!” he cried angrily.  “I seem to be cursed with fools for assistants!”

Throwing up the window, he leaned out.  I stood at his elbow; and as I looked I saw a great red glow rising from the distant woods.  The sound of a car approaching at headlong speed reached my ears, and at the same moment I saw the headlights.

“Hullo, there!” cried Gatton.  “Blythe!  Petersham!”

The car stopped, and a cry came back: 

“We’ve lost him, sir!... and the Bell House is in flames!”

CHAPTER XXI

IN LONDON AGAIN

“Then the sudden change in the police attitude towards Eric,” said Isobel, “is not due to any discoveries which you or Inspector Gatton have made at Friar’s Park?”

“That I cannot say,” I replied.  “We have made certain discoveries as I have already told you, but whilst they distinctly point to some criminal whose identity is not yet fully established, unfortunately I cannot say that in a legal sense they clear Coverly.”

Isobel, as I had thought at the first moment of our meeting, looked very tired and had that pathetic expression of appeal in her eyes which had hurt me so much when first it had appeared there on the morning after the tragedy.  She was palpably ill at ease, and I had small cause to wonder at this.  Although a veiled paragraph (in which I thought I could detect the hand of Gatton) had appeared in the press on the previous day, briefly stating that evidence had been volunteered by Sir Eric Coverly which had led to an entirely new line of police inquiry, the item of news—­which had naturally excited wide-spread interest—­had never been amplified.  Amid the alarms and excursions which had terminated my visit to Upper Crossleys, Gatton I supposed had forgotten to refer to this matter; but I did not doubt that the paragraph was an inspired one issued from Scotland Yard.

My friend’s object in circulating this statement was not by any means evident to me, but as I expected to see him later that day I hoped to be able to obtain from him some explanation of his new tactics.

Many hours had elapsed since, with the flames of the burning Bell House reddening the night behind me, and throwing into lurid relief the fir-groves surrounding Dr. Damar Greefe’s mysterious stronghold, I had been borne along the road towards London.  That Gatton had hoped for much from a detailed search of the Eurasian’s establishment, I knew, for I had not forgotten his anger at the appearance of the flames above the tree tops which had told of the foiling of his plans.