"I gather that Wolff must have had friends in the neighbourhood," Seaman
replied, "or else--"

"Well?"

"My last supposition sounds absurd," Seaman confessed, "but the whole
matter is so incomprehensible that I was going to say--or else he was
forcibly removed."

Dominey laughed softly.

"Wolff would scarcely have been an easy man to abduct, would he," he
remarked, "even if we could hit upon any plausible reason for such a
thing! As a matter of fact, Seaman," he concluded, turning on his heel
a little abruptly as he saw Rosamund standing in the avenue, "I cannot
bring myself to treat this Johann Wolff business seriously. Granted that
the man was a spy, well, let him get on with it. We are doing our job
here in the most perfect and praiseworthy fashion. We neither of us have
the ghost of a secret to hide from his employers."

"In a sense that is true," Seaman admitted.

"Well, then, cheer up," Dominey enjoined. "Take a little walk with us,
and we will see whether Parkins cannot find us a bottle of that old
Burgundy for lunch. How does that sound?"

"If you will excuse me from taking the walk," Seaman begged, "I would
like to remain here until your return."