“There are two men in the place besides the governor—­butler and footman, dressed in livery.  They sleep out, and only come after lunch.”

Hardaway paused to consider for a moment.

“Look here,” Quest suggested, “they know all you, of course, and they’ll never let you in until they’re forced to.  I’m a stranger.  Let me go.  I’ll get in all right.”

Hardaway peered around the corner of the street.

“All right,” he assented.  “We shall follow you up pretty closely, though.”

Quest stepped back into the taxi and gave the driver a direction.  When he emerged in front of the handsome grey stone house he seemed to have become completely transformed.  There was a fatuous smile upon his lips.  He crossed the pavement with difficulty, stumbled up the steps, and held on to the knocker with one hand while he consulted a slip of paper.  He had scarcely rung the bell before a slightly parted curtain in the front room fell together, and a moment later the door was opened by a man in the livery of a butler, but with the face and physique of a prize-fighter.

“Lady of the house,” Quest demanded.  “Want to see the lady of the house.”

Almost immediately he was conscious of a woman standing in the hall before him.  She was quietly but handsomely dressed; her hair was grey; her smile, although a little peculiar, was benevolent.

“You had better come in,” she invited.  “Please do not stand in the doorway.”

Quest, however, who heard the footsteps of the others behind him, loitered there for a moment.

“You’re the lady whose name is on this piece of paper?” he demanded.  “This place is all right, eh?”

“I really do not know what you mean,” the woman replied coldly, “but if you will come inside, I will talk to you in the drawing-room.”

Quest, as though stumbling against the front-door, had it now wide open, and in a moment the hall seemed full.  The woman shrieked.  The butler suddenly sprang upon the last man to enter, and sent him spinning down the steps.  Almost at that instant there was a scream from upstairs.  Quest took a running jump and went up the stairs four at a time.  The butler suddenly snatched the revolver from Hardaway’s hand and fired blindly in front of him, missing Quest only by an inch or two.

“Don’t be a fool, Karl!” the woman called out.  “The game’s up.  Take it quietly.”

Once more the shriek rang through the house.  Quest rushed to the door of the room from whence it came, tried the handle and found it locked.  He ran back a little way and charged it.  From inside he could hear a turmoil of voices.  White with rage and passion, he pushed and kicked madly.  There was the sound of a shot from inside, a bullet came through the door within an inch of his head, then the crash of broken crockery and a man’s groan.  With a final effort Quest dashed the door in and staggered into the room.  Lenora was standing in the far corner, the front of her dress torn and blood upon her lip.  She held a revolver in her hand and was covering a man whose head and hands were bleeding.  Around him were the debris of a broken jug.