“You brought them, but at the expense of alarming the country-side.  I wish we had come without you.”

“Nonsense!  My men advanced like ghosts.  Could your police have come down that brae alone to-night?”

“Yes, because it would have been deserted.  Your soldiers, I tell you, have done the mischief.  This woman, who, so many of our prisoners admit, brought the news of our coming, must either have got it from one of your men or have seen them on the march.”

“The men did not know their destination.  True, she might have seen us despite our precautions, but you forget that she told them how we were to act in the event of our being seen.  That is what perplexes me.”

“Yes, and me too, for it was a close secret between you and me and Lord Rintoul and not half-a-dozen others.”

“Well, find the woman, and we shall get the explanation.  If she is still in the town she cannot escape, for my men are everywhere.”

“She was seen ten minutes ago.”

“Then she is ours.  I say, Riach, if I were you I would set all my prisoners free and take away a cartload of their wives instead.  I have only seen the backs of the men of Thrums, but, on my word, I very nearly ran away from the women.  Hallo!  I believe one of your police has caught our virago single-handed.”

So Halliwell exclaimed, hearing some one shout, “This is the rascal!” But it was not the Egyptian who was then thrust into the round-room.  It was John Dunwoodie, looking very sly.  Probably there was not, even in Thrums, a cannier man than Dunwoodie.  His religious views were those of Cruickshanks, but he went regularly to church “on the off-chance of there being a God after all; so I’m safe, whatever side may be wrong.”

“This is the man,” explained a policeman, “who brought the alarm.  He admits himself having been in Tilliedrum just before we started.”

“Your name, my man?” the sheriff demanded.

“It micht be John Dunwoodie,” the tinsmith answered cautiously.

“But is it?”

“I dinna say it’s no.”

“You were in Tilliedrum this evening?”

“I micht hae been.”

“Were you?”

“I’ll swear to nothing.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a canny man.”

“Into the cell with him,” Halliwell cried, losing patience.

“Leave him to me,” said the sheriff.  “I understand the sort of man.  Now, Dunwoodie, what were you doing in Tilliedrum?”

“I was taking my laddie down to be prenticed to a writer there,” answered Dunwoodie, falling into the sheriff’s net.

“What are you yourself?”

“I micht be a tinsmith to trade.”

“And you, a mere tinsmith, dare to tell me that a lawyer was willing to take your son into his office?  Be cautious, Dunwoodie.”

“Weel, then, the laddie’s highly edicated and I hae siller, and that’s how the writer was to take him and make a gentleman o’ him.”