The sergeant slowly lumbered across in time to let two more couples escape.  It was evident that he hated the job; indeed, would have arrested Kennedy in the old days before Carton had thrown such a scare into the grafters.  But Kennedy’s assurance had flabbergasted him and he obeyed.

Another bar yielded, and another.  Together we squeezed in and found ourselves in a dark front parlour.  There was nothing to distinguish it from any ordinary reception room in the blackness.

Hurried footsteps were heard as if several people were retreating into the next house.  Down the hall we hastened to the back room.

A second we listened.  All was silent.  Was Clare safe?  It looked ominous.  Still the door, partly battered in, was closed.

“Miss Kendall!” called Craig, bending down close to the door.

“Is it you, Professor Kennedy?” came back a faint voice from the other side.

“Yes.  Are you all right?”

There was no answer, but she was evidently tugging at something which appeared to be a heavy piece of furniture braced against the door.  At last the bolt was slipped back, and there in the doorway she swayed, half exhausted but safe.

“Yes, all right,” murmured Clare, bracing herself against the chiffonier which she had moved away from the door, “just a little shaky from the drugs—­but all right.  Don’t bother about me, now.  I can take care of myself.  I’ll feel better in a minute.  Upstairs—­ that is where I think that woman is.  Please, please don’t—­I’m all right—­truly.  Upstairs.”

Kennedy had taken her gently by the arm and she sank down in an easy chair.

“Please hurry,” she implored.  “You may be too late.”

She had risen again in spite of us and was out in the lower hall.  We could hear a footstep on the stairs.

“There she goes, the woman who has been hiding up there, Madame—­”

Clare cut the words short.

A woman had hastily descended the steps, evidently seeing her opportunity to escape while we were in the back of the house.  She had reached the street door, which now was open, and the flaming arc light in front of the house shone brightly on her.

I looked, expecting to see our dark-haired, olive-skinned Marie.  I stared in amazement.  Instead, this woman was fair, her hair was flaxen, her figure more slim, even her features were different.  She was a stranger.  I could not recollect ever having seen her.

Again I strained my eyes, thinking it might be Betty Blackwell at last, but this woman bore no resemblance apparently to her.  She looked older, more mature.

In my haste I noted that she had a bandage about her face, as if she had been injured recently, for there seemed to be blood on it where it had worked itself loose in her flight.  She gave one glance at us, and quickened her pace at seeing us so close.  The bandage, already loose, slipped off her face and fell to the floor.  Still she did not seem other than a stranger to me, though I had a half-formed notion that I had seen that face somewhere before.  She did not stop to pick the bandage up.  She had gained the door and was down the front step on the sidewalk before we could stop her.