“I daresay the gang have other places,” he said to Atkins, “but this is their headquarters, I fancy.  If I can only get some of them to tell the truth we might find the other places.”

“Hale wants to confess.”

“Yes.  But I fancy it is about the murder of Miss Loach.  She was apparently killed to ensure the safety of this den.  We must root the coiners out, Atkins.  Maraquito, who is the head of the business, is at large, and unless we can take her, she will continue to make false money in some other place.  However, I have seen enough for the time being.  Keep guard over this place till we hear from the Yard tomorrow.”

“You’ll go home and lie down, sir.”

“No.  I intend to hear Hale’s confession.  By to-morrow it will be too late.  I wouldn’t miss hearing what he has to say for anything.”

“But can you keep up, sir?”

“Yes, yes—­don’t bother,” said Jennings, rising, the pain making him testy, “give me your arm, Atkins.  By the way, where does the other passage lead to?  I have not enough strength to explore.”

“It leads to the top of the ground, sir, and comes out into the trunk of a tree.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sir, it’s very clever.  There’s an old oak near the wall, and the trunk is hollow.  All anyone has to do is to climb up through the trunk by means of stairs and drop over the wall.  The coiners were making for that when we captured them.”

“Humph!  Have that place watched.  Maraquito may come here to-night after all.  It is now one o’clock.”

“I don’t think she’ll come, Mr. Jennings.  But we have every point watched.  No one can come or go unless we know.”

“Come along then,” said Jennings, who was growing weak, “let us see Hale.  The sooner his confession is written and signed the better.”

Not another word did Jennings say till he got on to the ground floor of the villa.  But he had been thinking, for when there he turned to the man who supported him.  “How is it the oak with the hollow trunk still stands?” he asked.

“Oh, it escaped the fire, sir.  Some of the boughs were burnt off but the trunk itself is all right.  It is close to the wall too.”

“Humph!” said Jennings, setting his teeth with the pain, “give me a sup of brandy out of your flask, Atkins.  Now for Hale.”

When he arrived in the bedroom where Hale was lying groaning, Jennings had the factitious strength of the spirit.  A sleepy-eyed clerk was seated at the table with sheets of paper before him.  A lamp was on the table.  Mrs. Barnes was crouching in a chair near the bed.  When she saw Jennings she flung herself down weeping.

“Oh, sir, I knew no more of this than a babe unborn,” she wailed, “I never thought my second was a villing.  To think that Thomas—­”

“That’s all right, Mrs. Barnes, I quite acquit you.”

“Not Barnes.  Pill I am again, and Mrs. Pill I’ll be to the end of my days.  To think Thomas should be a blackguard.  Pill drank, I don’t deny, but he didn’t forge and coin, and—­”