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He was trembling violently, and the fury of the passion that had possessed him and had given his mighty muscles a force more than human, was still upon him.

Going to the window, he looked out, for he did not quite know what had happened and from it he looked back at the wardrobe door.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Yes."

He ran to it and tore open the door and from within very tenderly and gently he lifted down the half-swooning Ella who, securely gagged and tightly bound, had been thrust into its interior to conceal her from him.

Hurriedly he freed her from her bonds and from the handkerchief that was tied over her mouth and holding her in his arms like a child, pressing her close to his heart, he carried her lightly out of that dreadful room.

Only once did she stir, only once did she speak, when lifting her pale, strained face to him she murmured very faintly something in which he just caught the words:

"Deede Dawson."

"He'll trouble us no more nor any one else, I think," answered Rupert, and she said no more but snuggled down in his arms as though with a feeling of perfect security and safety.

He took her to her own room and left her with her mother, and then went down to the hall and took a chair and sat at the front door.

All at once he felt very tired and one of his shoulders hurt him, for he had strained a muscle there rather badly.

His one desire was to rest, and he did not even trouble to go round to the back of the house to see what had happened to Deede Dawson, though indeed that was not a point on which he entertained much doubt.

For a long time he sat there quietly, till at last his father arrived in a motor-car from Wreste Abbey, together with a police-inspector from the county town whom he had picked up on the way.

Rupert took them into the room where Deede Dawson's chessmen and the board were still standing and told them as briefly as he could what had happened since the first day when he had left his home to try to trace out and defeat the plot hatched by Walter Dunsmore and Deede Dawson.

"You people wouldn't act," he said to the inspector. "You said there was no evidence, no proof, and I daresay you were right enough from the legal point of view. But it was plain enough to me that there was some sort of conspiracy against my uncle's life, I thought against my father's as well, but I was not sure of that at first. It was through poor Charley Wright I became so certain. He found out things and told me about them; but for him the first attempt to poison my uncle would have succeeded. Even then we had still no evidence to prove the reality of our suspicions, for Walter destroyed it, by accident, I thought at the time, purposely, as I know now. It was something Walter said that gave Charley the idea of coming here. Then he vanished. He must have roused their suspicions somehow, and they killed him. But again Walter put us all off the scent by his story of having seen Charley in London, so that it was there the search for him was made, and no one ever thought of Bittermeads. I never suspected Walter, such an idea never entered my head; but luckily I didn't tell him of my idea of coming to Bittermeads myself to try to find out what was really going on here. He knew nothing of where I was till I told him that day at Wreste Abbey, then of course he came over here at once. I thought it was anxiety for my safety, but I expect really it was to warn his friends. When I saw him here that night I told him every single thing, I trusted the carrying-out of everything I had arranged to him. If it hadn't been for a note Miss Cayley wrote me to warn me, I should have walked right into the trap and so would my father too."

The police-inspector asked a few questions and then made a search of the room which resulted in the discovery of quite sufficient proof of the guilt of Deede Dawson and of Walter Dunsmore.

Among these proofs was also a hastily-scribbled note from Walter that solved the mystery of John Clive's death. It was not signed, but both General Dunsmore and Rupert knew his writing and