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Rh Ferguson, and a lady assistant, Miss Sarah Billing, entered the hotel armed with a warrant authorising them to search the apartments occupied by Mrs. Herman and her sister, Mr. Herman himself being already in custody at Beaconsfield.

Both Mr. Engstroem, the hotel-keeper, and Mistress Martha, his wife, knew perfectly well what this meant, but Mistress Martha grasped the situation a few moments earlier than her deep-thinking but somewhat slow-witted husband did, and, while the expostulations and explanations were going on, she skipped upstairs to warn her guests, not because she had any particular personal regard for them, but for the simple and sufficient reason that she didn't want any I.D.B.'s caught red-handed on her husband's premises.

Although she knocked at the door, she didn't wait for the usual "Come in." She