Ryder had shown no disposition to stir; he was still sipping at the glass, the coolest man in the room.  The other guests looked unspeakably stupid in their open-mouthed amazement.  Ryder saw that another trooper had taken the sergeant’s place at the door, and that the man at the French window was now on the inside.

The first trooper had advanced to within a few feet of Ryder before it seemed to occur to the latter that he was the person addressed.

‘Do you mean me, my man?’ he said.

’I do; and I may tell you hanky-panky won’t be healthy for you.  We’ve got you cornered.’

Ryder arose quite unruffled, and set down his glass.  Looking round upon the guests, he smiled and said: 

’This is another of the possibilities of social life in Victoria.  Will you tell me who I am supposed to be, and what I am supposed to do?’

‘You are supposed to take these on for one thing,’ said the trooper, swinging a pair of handcuffs in his left hand.

‘Oh, certainly, if it’s in the game.’  Ryder offered his wrists.

‘Behind you, please.’

‘To be sure.’  With his clenched fists behind him, Ryder submitted to the handcuffs, and then, as he stood manacled, his eye fell upon Donald Macdougal.  The squatter was almost at his elbow, leaning against a small table, rolling his tongue under his teeth.  The eyes of the two men met, and under the bushy brows of Monkey Mack there was a reddish gleam in which the Honourable Walter Ryder read a baboon-like malignancy, and in a moment the latter realized that in all his plans and precautions he had never made due allowance for the cunning and depth of this extraordinary man; but his face expressed nothing.

‘Ah—­h!’ The sergeant gave a sigh of relief as he dropped his pistol hand.  ‘That’s better.’

‘Now,’ said Ryder coldly, ’will you tell me if this is a new parlour game, or are these actual troopers who are a little more idiotic than the average?’

Ryder addressed Cargill.  He was standing with his back to the piano; the gaping guests formed a semicircle in front of him.  Marcia, sitting on a couch, motionless, with cheeks of deadly whiteness, uttered no sound, and her eyes looked like patches of darkness in her icy face.  Lucy, standing at the piano, never took her eyes from Ryder.  She could see what the others could not see—­the long, thin hands of the prisoner slowly but easily working themselves out of the grip of the handcuffs.

’Call it a parlour game if you like, Mr. Solo, but I’m the winner, and I’ll trouble you to come with me.’

’Wait a moment.  Macdougal, this farce has gone far enough.  As your guest, I demand an explanation.’

Macdougal looked at Ryder in silence for a moment, and then said quietly:  ‘They’re callin’ the new man yonder at the five-mile Brummy the Nut; maybe ye mind him.’

‘I do not.  I—­’