Not a sound disturbed the silence of the deserted place, save when the slight breeze sighed through the trees of the adjoining coppice, and swayed some invisible shutter which creaked upon its rusty hinges.

An owl hooted, and the detective was on the alert in a moment. It was a well-known signal. Was the owl a feathered one or a human mimic?

No other sound followed, until the breeze came again, whispered in the coppice, and shook the shutter.

Then the chauffeur's whistle came, faintly, and with something tremulous in its note; for the adventure, though it offered little novelty to the experience of the Scotland Yard man, was dangerously unique from the mechanic's point of view. But where the Right Hon. Walter Belford led it was impolitic, if not impossible, to decline to follow. Yet, the whistle spoke of a man not over-confident. "SÉverac Bablon" was a disturbing name!

Sheffield pressed the knob of the torch and stepped into the bare and dirty room beyond.

The beam of the torch swept the four walls, with faded paper peeling in strips from the damp plaster; showed a grate full of rubbish, a battered pail, and a bare floor littered with debris of all sorts, great cavities gaping between many of the planks. A cupboard was searched, and proved to contain a number of empty cans and bottles—nothing else.

Into the next room went the investigator, to meet with no better fortune. The third was a big kitchen, empty; the fourth a paved scullery, also empty—with the chauffeur at the door, holding his spanner in readiness for sudden assault.

"Upstairs!" said Sheffield shortly.

Up the creaking stairs they passed, their footsteps filling the place with ghostly echoes.

A square landing offered four doors, all closed, to their consideration.

Sheffield paused, and listened.

The owl had hooted again.

He directed the ray of the torch upon the door on the immediate right of the stairhead.

"We're short-handed for this!" he muttered; "but it has to be risked now. Stay where you are and be on the alert. Watch those other doors." He tried the handle.

The door was locked.

To the next one he passed without hesitation. It yielded to his hand, and he flashed the light about a bare room, with half of the ceiling sloping down to the window. In the corner beyond this window a second door was partly concealed by the recess. The inspector stepped across the floor and threw the door open.

Then events moved rapidly.

Someone literally shot into the room behind him, falling with a crash that shook the place like thunder. Bang! sounded through the house, and a key turned in a lock!

Sheffield spun round like an unwieldy top, and saw the chauffeur struggling to his feet and rubbing his head vigorously.

The detective made no outcry, nor did he waste energy by trying a door he knew to be locked. He stood, keenly alert, and listened.

Footsteps rapidly receded down the stairs.

"Who did it? How did he get behind me?" muttered the dazed chauffeur.

"Out of one of the other rooms! I told you to watch them!"

Inspector Sheffield was angry, but he had not lost his presence of mind.

"We must get out—quick! The window!"

He leapt to the low window, throwing it open.

"Too far to drop! We've got to smash the door! Perhaps they've left the key in the lock! Set to on the panel with that bit of iron of yours!"

The man began a vigorous assault upon the woodwork. It was old, but very tough, and yielded tardily to the blows of the instrument. Then a big crack appeared as the result of a stroke shrewdly planted.

"Stand away!" directed Sheffield; and leaning back upon his left foot, he dashed his right upon the broken panel, shattering it effectually.

At the moment that the chauffeur thrust his hand through the jagged aperture to seek for the key, thud! thud! thud! came from the lane below.

"That's the car!" cried the inspector. "My God! what have they done to Mr. Belford?"

The other paused and listened intently.

"It's the grey car," he said. "Why didn't they take the guv'nor's?"

"Open the door!" cried Sheffield impatiently. "Is the key there?"

"Yes," was the reply; "here we are!" And the door was opened.

Sheffield started down the stairs with noisy clatter, and, the chauffeur a good second, raced through the rooms below and out into the yard.

"Mr. Belford! Mr. Belford!" he cried.

But no answer came, only a whisper from the coppice, followed by the squeak of the crazy shutter.

They ran out to where they had left Belford on guard over the grey car; but no sign of him remained, nor evidence of a struggle. The hum of the retreating motor grew faint in the distance.

"Ah!" cried Sheffield, and started running towards Mr. Belford's limousine on the edge of the coppice. "Quick! don't you see? He's kidnapped! In you go! This just about sees me out at Scotland Yard if we don't overtake them!"

"They've gone back the way we've just come!" said the chauffeur, hurling himself on board. "I can't make out where they're going—and I can't make out why they took the worst car! It's an old crock, hired from Lewes. We can run it down inside five minutes!"

"Thank God for that!" said Sheffield, as, for the second time that night, he set out across moonlit Sussex on the front of the big car, in pursuit of the most elusive man who ever had baffled the Criminal Investigation Department.

Visions of degradation to the ranks from which he so laboriously had risen occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else; for to have allowed the notorious SÉverac Bablon to kidnap the Home Secretary under his very eyes was a blunder which he knew full well could not be condoned.

Even the breathless drop into the great bowl on the Downs did not serve to dispel his gloomy dreams. Then:

"There they are! And, as I live, making straight for Womsley!" cried the chauffeur.

Sheffield stood up unsteadily on his insecure perch, and there was the mysterious grey car, which now was become a veritable nightmare, mounting the hill in front.

One minute passed, and Sheffield was straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of the occupants. But no one was visible. Two minutes passed, and the inspector began to think that his eyesight was failing, or that a worse thing portended. For, as far as he could make out, only one man occupied the car—the man who drove her!

"What does it mean?" muttered the detective, clutching at the shoulder of the chauffeur to support himself. "It must be SÉverac Bablon! But—where's Mr. Belford?"

Three minutes passed, and the brilliant moonlight set at rest all doubts respecting the identity of the man who drove the car.

His silvern hair flowed out, gleaming on his shoulders, as he bent forward over the driving-wheel.

It was the Right Hon. Walter Belford!

"What in the name of murder does it mean?" cried Sheffield. "Has he gone mad? Mr. Belford! Mr. Belford! Hoy! ... Hoy! ... hoy! Mr. Belford!"

But although he must have heard the cry, Mr. Belford, immovable at the wheel, drove madly ahead!

"What shall I do?" asked the chauffeur in an awed voice.

"Do?" rapped Sheffield savagely. "Pass him and block the road! He's stark, raving mad!"

So, along that white road, under the placid moon, was enacted the strangest incident of this entirely bizarre adventure; for Mr. Belford, in the hired motor, was pursued and overtaken by his own car, which passed him, forged ahead, turned across the road, and blocked it.

For one moment the Home Secretary, racing down upon them, seemed to contemplate leaving the path for the grassland, and thus proceeding on his way; but the chauffeur ran out to meet him, holding up his arms and crying:

"Stop, sir! Stop!"

Mr. Belford stopped the car and fixed his eyes upon the man with a look of real amazement.

"You?" he said, and turned to Sheffield.

"Who else?" rapped the inspector irritably. "What on earth are you doing, sir? Where's the quarry—where's SÉverac Bablon?"

"What!" cried the Home Secretary, from the step of the car. "You have lost him?"

"Lost him!" repeated Sheffield ironically. "I never had him!"

"But," said Mr. Belford distinctly, and in his question-answering voice, "did you not return to where I was stationed and inform me that you had them all locked in an upper room? Did I not, myself, hear their attempt to break down the door? And did you not report that, their numbers being considerable, you could not, single-handed, hope to arrest them?"

"Go on!" said Sheffield, in a tired voice. "What else did I tell you?"

"You see," resumed the politician triumphantly, "this impasse is due to no irregularity in my own conduct! You told me that my limousine had mysteriously been tampered with, and that the only course was for you and Jenkins to remain and endeavour to prevent the prisoners from escaping, whilst I, in their car, returned to Womsley Old Place for your men! Hearing you behind me, I naturally assumed that the prisoners had overpowered you and were in pursuit of me!"

"I see!" said Sheffield, removing his hat and scratching his head viciously.

"Finally," said Mr. Belford, with dignity, "you gave me this note for your principal assistant, Dawson"—and handed an envelope to the inspector.

The latter, with the resignation of despair, accepted it, tore it open, and took out a card. Directing the ray of his pocket-torch upon it, though in the brilliant moonlight no artificial aid really was necessary, he read the following aloud:

"SÉverac Bablon begs to present his compliments to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department and to thank him for according the privilege of a private interview. Whilst deprecating the subterfuge rendered necessary by the right honourable gentleman's attitude, he feels that it is justified by results, and begs respectfully to repeat his assurance that no one in whom the right honourable gentleman is interested shall be compromised, now or at any future time."