steps, with the result that in an hour the woman breathed again! Twenty-four hours later she was conscious and able to speak. It is assumed that the poison and the cold night air together had paralyzed her vasomotor nerves and reduced her body to a state akin to hibernation, wherein physical needs are at their minimum. That case has doubtless awakened these suspicions, and having regard to them, we will keep the poor gentleman in a warm room and proceed with the classical means for restoring respiration."
The doctor was thus engaged when four men reached Chadlands after their nightly journey. They were detective officers of wide reputation, and their chief—a grey-haired man with a round, amiable face and impersonal manner—listened to the events that had followed upon Peter Hardcastle's arrival and departure.
Sir Walter himself narrated the incidents, and perceiving his excitation, Inspector Frith assumed the gentlest and most forbearing attitude that he knew.
The police had come in a fighting humor. They arrived without any preconceived ideas or plan of action; but they were in bitter earnest, and knew that a great body of public opinion lay behind them. That Hardcastle, who had won such credit for his department and earned the applause of two continents, should have thus been lost, in a manner so mean and futile, exasperated not only his personal colleagues, but the larger public interested in his picturesque successes and achievements.
