CHAPTER XXII
THE SECRET ENTRANCE
AS may be guessed, Jennings was very vexed that Maraquito had
escaped. He had posted his men at the front and back doors
and also at the side entrance through which Senora Gredos in
her disguise as Mrs. Herne had entered. He never considered
for the moment that so clever a woman might have some way of
escape other than he had guessed. "Yet I might have thought
it," he said, when Cuthbert and he left the house. "I expect
that place is like a rabbit-burrow. Maraquito always expected
to be taken some day in spite of her clever assumption of
helplessness. That was a smart dodge."
"How did you learn that she was shamming?"
"I only guessed so. I had no proof. But when I interviewed
the pseudo Mrs. Herne at her Hampstead lodgings, she betrayed
so much emotion when speaking of you that I guessed it was the
woman herself. I only tried that experiment to see if she was
really ill. If she had not moved I should have been done."
"It seems to me that you are done now," said Cuthbert angrily.
He was not very pleased at the use Jennings had made of him.
"By no means. Maraquito will take refuge in a place I know
of. She does not fancy I am aware of its existence. But I am
on my way there now. You can come also if you like."
"No," said Mallow decisively, "so far as I am concerned, I
have no further interest in these matters. I told you so the
other day."
"Don't you wish to know who killed Miss Loach?"
Mallow hesitated, and wondered how much the detective knew.
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