For while I felt it would be highly creditable to my sagacity, as well as valuable to my reputation as a detective, to restore these escaped convicts in any way possible into the hands of justice, my chief ambition after all was to so manage the affair as to save the wife of Mr.Blake, not only from the consequences of their despair, but from the publicity and scandal attendant upon the open arrest of two heavily armed men.

Strategy, therefore, rather than force was to be employed, and strategy to be successful must be founded upon the most thorough knowledge of the matter with which one has to deal.
Three days, then, did I give to the acquiring of that knowledge, the result of which was the possession of the following facts.
1.

That the landlady was right when she told me the girl was never left alone, one of the men, if not the father then the son, always remaining with her.
2.

That while thus guarded, she was not so restricted but that she had the liberty of walking in the hall, though never for any length of time.
3.

That the cross on the door seemed to possess some secret meaning connected with their presence in the house, it having been erased one evening when the whole three went out on some matter or other, only to be chalked on again when in an hour or so later, father and daughter returned alone.
4.