The Maze, in all its ordinary quietness, was lying at rest under the midday sun. That is, as regards outward and visible rest: of inward rest, the rest that diffuses peace in the heart, there was but little. It was the day following the expedition of Mr. Strange to the house of Bull the stonemason.

Mrs. Grey\'s baby was lying in its cot. Mrs. Grey, who had been hushing it to sleep, prepared to change her morning wrapper for the gown she would wear during the day. A bouquet of fresh-cut flowers lay on the dressing-table, and the chamber window stood open to the free, fresh air. Ann Hopley was in the scullery below, peeling the potatoes for dinner, and the old man servant was out somewhere over his work. As the woman threw the last potato into the pan, there came a gentle ring at the gate bell. She turned round and looked at the clock in the kitchen.

"Who\'s that, I wonder? It\'s too early for the bread. Any way, you\'ll wait till I\'ve got my potatoes on, whoever you may be," concluded she, addressing the unknown intruder.

The saucepan on, she went forth. At the gate stood an inoffensive-looking young man with a large letter or folded parchment in his hand.

"What do you want?" asked Ann Hopley.

"Is this the Maze?"

"Yes."

"Does a lady named Grey live here?"

"Yes."

"Then I\'ve got to leave this for her, please."

Taking the key from her pocket, Ann Hopley unsuspiciously opened the gate, and held forth her hand to take the parchment. Instead of giving it to her, the man pushed past, inside; and, to Ann Hopley\'s horror, Mr. Strange and a policeman suddenly appeared, and followed him. She would have closed the gate upon them; and she made a kind of frantic effort to do so: but one woman cannot effect much against three determined men.

"You can shut it now," said Mr. Strange, when they were inside. "Don\'t be alarmed, my good woman: we have no wish to harm you."

"What do you want?--and why do you force yourselves in, in this way?" she inquired, frightened nearly to death.

"I am a detective officer belonging to the London police force," said Mr. Strange, introducing himself in his true character. "I bring with me a warrant to search the house called the Maze and its out-door premises"--taking the folded paper from the man\'s hand. "Would you like me to read it to you before I go on?"

"Search them for what!" asked Ann Hopley, feeling angry with herself for her white face. "I don\'t want to hear anything read. Do you think we have got stolen goods here?--I\'m sure you are enough to scare a body\'s senses away, bursting in like this!"

Mr. Strange slightly laughed. "We are not looking for stolen goods," he said.

"What for then!" resumed the woman, striving to be calm.

"For some one whom I believe is concealed here."

"Some one concealed here! Is it me?--or my mistress?--or my old husband?"

"No."

"Then you won\'t find anybody else," she returned with an air of relief. "There\'s no soul in the place but us three, and that I\'ll vow: except Mrs. Grey\'s baby. And we had good characters, sir, I can tell you, both me and my husband, before Mrs. Grey engaged us. Would we harbour loose characters here, do you suppose?"

It was so much waste of words. Mr. Strange went without further parley into the intricacies of the Maze, calling to the policeman to follow him, and bidding the other--who was a local policeman also in plain clothes: both of them from Basham--remain near the gate and guard it against anybody\'s attempted egress. All this while the gate had been open. Ann Hopley locked it with trembling fingers, and then followed the men through the maze, shrieking out words of remonstrance at the top of her voice. Had there been ten felons concealed within, she made enough noise to warn them all.

"For goodness sake, woman, don\'t make that uproar!" cried the detective. "We are not going to murder you."

The terrified face of Mrs. Grey appeared at her chamber window. Old Hopley was gazing through the chink of the door of the tool-house, which he was about to clean out. The detective heeded nothing. He went straight to the house door and entered it.

"Wait here at the open door, and keep a sharp look round inside and out," were his orders to the policeman. "If I want you, I\'ll call."

But Ann Hopley darted before Mr. Strange to impede his progress--she was greatly agitated--and seized hold of his arm.

"Don\'t go in," she cried imploringly; "don\'t go in, for the love of heaven! My poor mistress is but just out of her confinement and the fever that followed it, and the fright will be enough to kill her. I declare to you that what I have said is true. There\'s nobody on these premises but those I\'ve named: my mistress and us two servants, me and Hopley. It can\'t be one of us you want!"

"My good woman, I have said that it is not. But, if it be as you say--that there\'s no one else, no one concealed here--why object to my searching?"

"For her sake," reiterated the agitated woman; "for the poor lady\'s sake."

"I must search: understand that," said Mr. Strange. "Better let me do it quietly."

As if becoming impressed with this fact, and that it was useless to contend further, Ann Hopley suddenly took her hands off the detective, leaving him at liberty to go where he would. Passing through the kitchen, she began to attend to her saucepan of potatoes.

Armed with his full power, both of law and of will, Mr. Strange began his search. The warrant had not been obtained from Sir Karl Andinnian, but from a magistrate at Basham: it might be that he did not feel sufficiently assured of Sir Karl\'s good faith: therefore the Maze was not averted beforehand.

It was not a large house; the rooms were soon looked into, and nothing suspicious was to be seen. Three beds were made up in three different chambers: the one in Mrs. Grey\'s room and two others. Was one of these occupied by Salter? The detective could not answer the doubt. They were plain beds in plain rooms, and it might be that the two servants did not sleep together. Knocking at the door, he entered Mrs. Grey\'s chamber: the baby slept in its cot: she stood at the glass in her dressing-gown, her golden hair falling about her.

"I beg your pardon; madam; I beg your pardon a thousand times," said the detective, with deprecation, as he removed his hat. "The law sometimes obliges us to do disagreeable things; and we, servants of it, cannot help ourselves."

"At least tell me the meaning of all this," she said with ashy face and trembling lips. And he explained that he was searching the house with the authority of a search-warrant.

"But what is it you want? Who is it?"

Again he explained to her that they were looking after an escaped fugitive, who, it was suspected, might have taken refuge in the Maze.

"I assure you, sir," she said, her gentle manner earnest, her words apparently truthful, "that no person whatever, man or woman, has been in the Maze since I have inhabited it, save myself and my two servants."

"Nevertheless, madam, we have information that some one else has been seen here."

"Then it has been concealed from me," she rejoined. "Will you not at least inform me who it is you are searching for? In confidence if you prefer: I promise to respect it."

"It is an escaped criminal named Salter," replied the officer, knowing that she would hear it from Sir Karl Andinnian, and wishing to be as civil to her as he could.

"Salter!" returned Mrs. Grey, showing the surprise that perhaps she did not feel. "Salter! Why Salter--at least if it is Salter--is the man who lives opposite these outer gates, and goes by the name of Smith. Salter has never been concealed here."

The very assertion made by Sir Karl Andinnian. Mr. Strange took a moment to satisfy his keen sight that there was no other ingress to this room, save by the door, and no piece of furniture large enough to conceal a man in, and was then about to bow himself out. But she spoke again.

"On my sacred word of honour, sir, I tell you truth. Sir Karl Andinnian--my landlord--has been suspecting that his agent, Smith, might turn out to be Salter: I suspected the same."

"But that man is not Salter, madam. Does not bear any resemblance to him. It was a misapprehensio............