Page:The Middle of Things - Fletcher (1922).djvu/282

 he demanded, as Millwaters and Perkwite hurried up. "Are you after anybody along there—in that house—the one at the end?"

"We're after a good many things and people in Dr. Martincole's place, Mr. Viner," answered Millwaters. "Mr. Perkwite and I traced Mr. Cave here early in the afternoon; he went in, but he's never come out; we saw you enter—here you are. We saw Miss Wickham and Mrs. Killenhall—there's Miss Wickham, but where's the other lady? And where—"

Viner stopped the clerk's questions with a glance, and he laughed a little as he gave him his answer.

"My dear fellow," he said, "you should have posted somebody at the back here. Why, we don't quite know yet, but Miss Wickham and myself were trapped in there. As for Cave, he must be the man who went away with Martincole. As for Mrs. Killenhall, she too has gone. That boy down there saw all three go, some time ago, while we were locked up. But—what made you watch these people?"

"We followed Cave," said Perkwite, "because Millwaters had been ordered to do so, and because I considered his conduct mysterious. Then, when we saw what was going on here,—your arrival following on that of Miss Wickham and Mrs. Killenhall,—we telephoned for Mr. Carless and more help. Carless and Lord Ellingham, and a couple of detectives, are at the front now. Millwaters and I heard from a denizen of these unlovely parts that there was a back entrance. We'd tried in vain for admittance at the front—"

"But they've got in now, Mr. Perkwite!" exclaimed Millwaters suddenly. "See, there's Mr. Car-