Mistress Lamb asked sharply, "and why did the citizens fail to find the Britisher?"
"That last is exactly what we are trying to find out, madam," the silversmith replied, and, turning to his daughter once more, he asked, "Did you have the key when you told me where he was?"
"Certainly, sir."
"Then how did he escape?" Master Lamb cried, looking around in amazement.
"Why, we let him out of the back window, as Master Dean said should be done," Sarah replied quickly, whereat the elder members of the party gazed at her in surprise and bewilderment, neither apparently able to speak.
"We let him go as soon as you and mother said it was to be done," Dorothy added triumphantly, "and it was well we set about it at once, for he had just left when the citizens came."
"Do you mean to say that I told you to set him free?" Master Dean literally screamed, and Dorothy replied in a matter-of-fact tone:
"Yes, sir; didn't he, Sarah?"
Then Master Lamb's daughter nodded in the affirmative, and the bewilderment of the elderly people was merged into stupefaction.
It was Master Lamb who first "gathered himself together" sufficiently to speak, and, striding across the room, he cried:
