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“Why,” said he, “it may come to that in the end.”

But Miss Knowles made a pretty gesture of protest.

“Please don’t make game of me, Frederic,” she said. “You mean the tramp scoundrels who have been giving you so much trouble. They make very poor substitutes for men in armour, and I refuse to consider them.”

Room after room was visited and admired; each was in keeping, both in furnishing and decoration, with the period of the building’s architecture.

“It is really tremendous,” said Ashton-Kirk, “and must require a horde of servants to keep it in order.”

“We have only two besides Kretz—and they are his wife and daughter.”

“I should like to see the kitchen,” said the crime specialist. “Very different, I suppose, from our present compact institutions.”

The kitchen was as huge as imagined; its bricked floor was scrubbed clean; its copper utensils gleamed upon the walls; the great fireplace held a turnspit upon which hung a goose, attended by a stolid-looking girl.

“The sergeant-major’s daughter?” asked Ashton-Kirk.