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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Riddle of the Night, by Thomas W. Hanshew
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Riddle of the Night
+
+Author: Thomas W. Hanshew
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2010 [EBook #33271]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIDDLE OF THE NIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from
+scanned images of public domain material from the Google
+Print archive.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HE TOOK UP THE DECANTERS ONE BY ONE AND SAMPLED THEIR
+CONTENTS IN TURN]
+
+
+
+
+THE INTERNATIONAL
+ADVENTURE LIBRARY
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THREE OWLS EDITION
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE RIDDLE OF
+THE NIGHT
+
+
+BY
+THOMAS W. HANSHEW
+
+Author of
+"Cleek, the Man of the Forty Faces,"
+"Cleek of Scotland Yard,"
+Etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+W. R. CALDWELL & CO.
+NEW YORK
+
+
+_Copyright, 1915, by_
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+       I. A Mysterious Affair                                          3
+      II. How the Chase Ended                                         14
+     III. The Shadow That Lay Behind                                  23
+      IV. Clews and Suspicions                                        36
+       V. The Riddle of the Night                                     47
+      VI. A Little Discrepancy                                        58
+     VII. "Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before"                   72
+    VIII. Ailsa Lorne                                                 77
+      IX. Blind Groping                                               88
+       X. Another Strand in the Web                                  101
+      XI. The Cloudburst                                             109
+     XII. The Thunderbolt                                            120
+    XIII. A Question of Veracity                                     127
+     XIV. A Change in the Program                                    139
+      XV. A Clew from the Air                                        149
+     XVI. A Bold Stroke                                              159
+    XVII. A Blunder and a Discovery                                  171
+   XVIII. Springing a Surprise                                       182
+     XIX. Picking up Threads                                         188
+      XX. "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth"                       199
+     XXI. When Two and Two Make Four                                 204
+    XXII. When Four and Four Make Eight                              215
+   XXIII. The Lady at the Gate                                       226
+    XXIV. The Mousetrap                                              237
+     XXV. The Fly in the Ointment                                    248
+    XXVI. The Open Window                                            260
+   XXVII. The View Halloo                                            268
+  XXVIII. Loisette is Vindicated                                     279
+    XXIX. "Quick! Fire!"                                             287
+     XXX. Nearing the Truth!                                         296
+    XXXI. How the Truth Was Told                                     304
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTERS
+
+
+     HAMILTON CLEEK, The Man of the Forty Faces and once known to
+     the Police as "The Vanishing Cracksman," now the great
+     Detective in his various disguises as Monsieur Georges de
+     Lesparre, Philip Barch, George Headland.
+
+     SUPERINTENDENT NARKOM, of Scotland Yard.
+
+     LENNARD, his chauffeur.
+
+     HAMMOND } Detective Sergeants.
+     PETRIE  }
+
+     MELLISH, Police Officer.
+
+     DOLLOPS, Cleek's trusted assistant.
+
+     LORD ST. ULMER, the father of
+
+     LADY KATHERINE FORDHAM, who is in love with
+
+     GEOFFREY CLAVERING, the only son and heir of
+
+     SIR PHILIP CLAVERING, of Clavering Close, and
+
+     LADY CLAVERING, his second wife.
+
+     COUNT FRANZ DE LOUVISAN, found mysteriously murdered after
+     having forced Lady Katherine to become engaged to him.
+
+     AILSA LORNE, Lady Katherine's friend and companion.
+
+     GENERAL and
+
+     MRS. RAYNOR, Lady Katherine's relatives.
+
+     HARRY RAYNOR, their son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR
+
+
+It was half-past eleven on the night of Wednesday, April 14th, when the
+well-known red limousine of Mr. Maverick Narkom, superintendent of
+Scotland Yard, came abruptly to the head of Mulberry Lane, which, as you
+may possibly know, is a narrow road skirting one of the loneliest and
+wildest portions of Wimbledon Common.
+
+Lennard, the chauffeur, put on the brake with such suddenness that the
+car seemed actually to rise from the earth, performed a sort of buzzing
+and snorting semicircle, and all but collided with the rear wall of
+Wuthering Grange before coming to a halt in the narrow road space which
+lay between that wall and the tree-fringed edge of the great Common.
+
+Under ordinary circumstances one might as soon have expected to run foul
+of a specimen of the great auk rearing a family in St. Paul's
+churchyard, as to find Mr. Narkom's limousine in the neighbourhood of
+Mulberry Lane at any hour of the day or the night throughout the whole
+cycle of the year.
+
+For a reason which will be made clear in the course of events, however,
+the superintendent had been persuaded to go considerably out of his way
+before returning to town after mingling duty with pleasure in taking
+part in the festivities attendant upon the coming of age of his friend
+Sir Philip Clavering's son and heir, and, incidentally, in seeing, too,
+that Petrie and Hammond, two of his sergeants, kept a watchful eye upon
+the famous Clavering service of gold plate which had been brought out of
+the bank vault for the occasion.
+
+All three were sitting serenely back among the cushions of the limousine
+at the period when Lennard brought it to this abrupt and startling halt,
+the result of which was to fairly jerk them out of their seats and send
+them sprawling over one another in a struggling heap.
+
+There was a moment of something like absolute confusion, for mist and
+darkness enveloped both the road and the Common, and none of the three
+could see anything from the windows of the car which might decide
+whether they had collided with some obstruction or were hovering upon
+the brink of some dangerous and unexpected pitfall.
+
+Nor were their fears lessened by perceiving--through the glass
+screen--that Lennard had started up from his seat, and, with a hastily
+produced electric torch in one upraised hand, was leaning forward and
+wildly endeavouring to discern something through the all-enfolding mist.
+Mr. Narkom hastily unlatched the door and leaned out.
+
+"What is it? What's gone wrong?" he inquired in the sharp staccato of
+excitement. "Anything amiss?"
+
+"Lord, yessir! I heard a shot and a cry. A pistol shot ... and a police
+whistle ... and a cry of murder, sir. Up the lane ahead of us!" began
+Lennard, in a quaking voice; then he uttered a cry of fright, for, of a
+sudden, the darkness was riven by the screaming note of a police
+whistle--of two police whistles in fact: shrilling appeal and answer far
+up the lonely lane.
+
+Hard on this came a man's voice shouting: "Head him off there, whoever
+you are! Don't let him get by you. Look sharp! He's making for the
+railway arch!"
+
+"All right, mate. I'm here!" another male voice flung back. "He won't
+get past me, the blighter!"
+
+Instantly there struck out the swift-measured sound of heavily shod feet
+racing at top speed up the mist-shrouded lane, and rapidly increasing
+the distance between the unseen runner and the standing limousine.
+
+No need to tell either Narkom or his men that the man whose steps they
+heard was a constable, for there is a distinctive note, to ears that are
+trained, rung out by the heavy, cumbersome boots which folly accords to
+the British policeman.
+
+Catching the ring of that telltale note now, Narkom shouted out at the
+top of his voice: "All right, Constable! Stick to him! Help coming!"
+
+Then with a word of command to Lennard he pulled in his head, slammed
+the door, and the chauffeur, dropping back to his seat, threw open the
+clutch and sent the limousine bounding up the lane at a fifty-mile clip.
+
+To-night, with the trees shadowing it and the mist crowding in, shoulder
+high, from the adjacent Common, the lane was a mere dark funnel; but to
+Lennard, whose boyhood had been passed within hailing distance of the
+place, it possessed no mysteries that the night or the vapour could
+hide.
+
+He knew that it ran on for some seven or eight hundred feet, with the
+high brick wall which marked the rear boundary of Wuthering Grange on
+one side of it and straggling trees and matted gorse bushes shutting it
+in on the other, until it dipped down a steadily increasing incline, and
+ran straightway through an old brick-walled, brick-roofed arch of a
+long-abandoned Wimbledon Loop line.
+
+Some two hundred feet upon the other side of this it divided into a sort
+of "Y," one branch swerving to the left forming a right of way across
+the meadows to the public highway, whilst the other struck out over the
+Common to the right, crossed Beverly Brook, and merged at length into
+the road which leads to Coombe Wood, and thence, through picturesque
+ways, to Kingston and the river.
+
+The limousine took those seven or eight hundred feet between the head of
+the lane and the old railway arch at such a stupendous pace that it
+seemed to have no more than started before the distance was eaten up
+and it came to halt again; but this time, in such a din and babel of
+struggling and shouting that Lennard seemed to have reached the very
+gateway of Sheol.
+
+Narkom and his men were out of the vehicle almost as the brake fell into
+place, and clicking their electric pocket torches into sudden flame,
+rushed headlong into the black opening of the arch, into which they had
+taken but half a dozen steps, when they came upon a startling sight.
+
+Snarling and yapping like a couple of fighting dogs and crying out in
+concert: "Got you, you blighter! Got you fast!" were two men, locked
+tight in each other's arms, reeling and swaying--one wearing the
+official badge of an appointed Common keeper, the other in the helmet
+and tunic of an ordinary constable.
+
+"Lend a hand, gov'ner, for Gawd's sake!" rapped out the former. "Name's
+Mawson, sir--keeper on the Common-- Number four, sir. Got the
+blackguard! Murder, sir--got him red handed!"
+
+"Good Lord!" little more than gulped the man he held.
+
+The two pairs of gripping hands dropped, the struggling figures fell
+apart, and the two men who but an instant before had been locked in an
+angry embrace stood staring at each other in open-mouthed amazement.
+
+"What kind of a game is this?" demanded Narkom, as with his allies he
+crowded forward. "You two people are paid to keep the peace, not to
+break it, dash you!"
+
+"My word!" exclaimed the Common keeper, finding his voice suddenly. "A
+copper, is it?--a copper! when I thought.... Gawd's truth, Constable,
+wot have you done with him? He run in here with me on his blessed heels.
+You didn't let him get past you, did you?"
+
+"No fear!" snapped out the constable indignantly. "I stood here
+waiting--waiting and shouting to you--until you ran smack into my
+blessed arms; and if anybody but you come in _your_ side of the arch, he
+never come out o' mine, I'll take my solemn oath!"
+
+"Then where's he gone? Wot's become of him?" shouted the Common keeper
+excitedly. "I tell you I was on the very heels of him from the moment I
+first whistled and called out to you to head him off. I could a-most
+have touched him when he dashed in here; and--and his footsteps never
+stopped soundin' for one second the whole blessed time. Murder is wot
+he's done--murder!--and I've been on his heels from the very moment he
+fired the shot."
+
+Narkom and his allies lost not an instant in revealing their identity
+and displaying their insignia of office to the two men.
+
+"Murder is it, Keeper?" exclaimed the superintendent, remembering all at
+once what Lennard had said about hearing the cry and the shot. "When and
+how? Lead me to the body."
+
+"Lor' bless you, sir, I aren't 'ad no time nor chanct to look after any
+body," replied the keeper. "All's I can tell you is that I was out there
+in my shelter on the Common when I heard the first cry--like as some one
+was callin' for help whiles some one else had 'em by the windpipe, sir;
+so I dashes out and cuts through the mist and gorse as fast as my
+blessed legs could carry me. Jist as I gets to the edge of the lane,
+sir, 'Bang!' goes a revolver shot jist 'arf a dozen feet in front of me,
+and a man, wot I couldn't see 'ide nor 'air of on account of the mist,
+nicks out o' somewheres, and cuts off down the lane like a blessed race
+'orse. I outs with me whistle and blows it as 'ard as I could, and cuts
+off after him. He never stopped runnin' for a blessed instant. He never
+doubled on me, never turned to the right nor to the left, gov'ner, but
+jist dashes into this arch--straight in front of me, sir, and me running
+on almost within reachin' distance, until I runs smack into the arms of
+this constable here, and grabs _him_, thinkin' I'd got my man for sure.
+Wherever he's got to since, I tell you he come in here, sir--smack
+_in_!--and me after him; and if he didn't get past the constable----"
+
+"He didn't-- I've told you so once, and I'll stick to it!" interrupted
+the constable himself, with some show of heat. "What do you take me
+for--an old woman? Look here, Mr. Narkom, sir, my name's Mellish. It's
+true I've only been on the force a little over a week, sir, but my
+sergeant will tell you I've got my wits about me and aren't in the least
+likely to let a man slip past me in the manner that this chap thinks.
+_Nothing_ went past me--nothing the size of a cat, let alone a man,
+sir--and if the party in question really _did_ come in here----"
+
+"I'll soon settle that question!" rapped in Narkom sharply.
+
+He flung a hurried command to Lennard, waved Petrie and Hammond aside,
+and an instant later the limousine moved swiftly up out of the mist
+until its bulk filled the entrance of the arch and its blazing acetylene
+lamps were sweeping it with light from end to end. Smooth as a rifle
+bore, its damp walls and curving roof shone out in the sudden glare--not
+a brick displaced, not a crevice big enough to shelter a rat much less a
+human being--and of the man the Common keeper had been chasing, not a
+sign nor a trace anywhere!
+
+"Whatever the fellow did or wherever he went, he can't have gone far, so
+look sharp, my lads!" commanded Narkom. "If we're quick we're sure to
+nab him. Come along, Constable, come along, Keeper. Lennard, you stop
+where you are and guard the exit from the arch, so if he doubles on us
+he can't get by _you_!"
+
+"Right you are, sir!" responded Lennard, as the superintendent and the
+four men made a dash toward that end of the arch through which the
+keeper was so positive the fugitive had come.
+
+"I say, Mr. Narkom!" he added, raising his voice and shouting after
+them. "Eyes sharp to the left, all of you, when you get outside this
+arch. Know the neighbourhood like a book, sir. Lane forks out into a 'Y'
+after you get about fifty yards on. Branches off on the left where
+there's an old house called Gleer Cottage, sir, that hasn't been
+tenanted for years and years. Walled garden--tool house--stable. Great
+place for man to hide, sir!"
+
+"Good boy! Thanks!" flung back Narkom. "Come on, my lads! Lively!"
+
+Then they swung out of the arch with a rush, and the last that Lennard
+saw of them before the shrouding mist took them and blotted them from
+his view, they were pelting up the lane at top speed and making headlong
+for the branching "Y" to which he had directed them, their footsteps
+sounding on the moist surface of the road and their electric torches
+emitting every now and again a spark like a glowworm flashing.
+
+Five minutes passed--the click of their flying steps had dropped off
+into silence; the flash of their torches had vanished in the distance
+and the mist; even the blurred sound of their excited voices was
+stilled; and neither ear nor eye could now detect anything but the soft
+drip of the moisture from the roof of the arch and the white oblivion of
+the close-pressing, ever-thickening mist.
+
+Still he sat there, waiting--alert, watchful, keen--looking straight
+before him and keeping a close watch on the unobstructed end of the
+miniature tunnel whose entire length was still flooded with the glare
+from the motor's lamps. If a mouse had crawled down its damp walls he
+must have seen it; if even so much as a shadow had come up out of that
+wilderness of mist and crept into the place, he must have detected, it.
+But there was nothing; neither man nor beast, neither shade nor shadow;
+only the loneliness and the mist and the soft "plick-plick!" of the
+dropping moisture.
+
+The five minutes became eight, ten, a dozen, without the slightest
+change in anything. Then, all of a sudden, Lennard's tense nerves gave a
+sort of jump and a swift prickle flashed up his spine and through his
+hair. A sound had come--a rustle--a step--a movement. Not from the
+direction in which he was looking, however, but from the lane beyond the
+arch and _behind_ the limousine.
+
+He jumped to his feet and rising on tiptoe on his driver's seat flashed
+the light of his electric torch back over the top of the vehicle; what
+he saw took all the breath out of him and set his heart and pulses
+hammering furiously.
+
+Against that thick blanket of mist the penetrating power of the torch's
+gleam was so effectually blunted that it could do nothing more than
+throw a pale, weak circle of light a few feet into the depths of a
+crowding vapour, leaving all beyond and upon either side doubly dark in
+contrast.
+
+Yet as the light streamed out and flung that circle into the impinging
+mist, there moved across it the figure of a woman, young and fair, with
+a scarf of lace thrown over her head, from beneath which fell a glory
+of unbound hair, thick and lustrous, over shoulders that were wrapped in
+ermine--ermine in mid-April!
+
+A woman! Here! At this hour! In this time of violence and evil doing!
+The thing was so uncanny, so unnatural, so startlingly unexpected, that
+Lennard's head swam.
+
+She was gone so soon--just glimmering across the circle of light and
+then vanishing into the mist as suddenly as she had appeared--that for a
+moment or two he lost his nerve and his wits, and ducked down under the
+screen of the motor's top, remembering all the tales he had ever heard
+of ghosts and apparitions, and, in a moment of folly, half believing he
+had looked upon one. But of a sudden his better sense asserted itself,
+and realizing that for a woman--_any_ woman, no matter how dressed, no
+matter how young and fair and good to look upon--to be moving stealthily
+about this place, at this hour, when there was talk of murder, was at
+least suspicious, he laid hands upon the wheel, and being unable to turn
+the vehicle in the arch and go after _her_, put on full power and went
+after Narkom and his men. A swift whizz carried him through the arch and
+up the lane, and, once in the open, he laid hand upon the bulb of the
+motor horn and sent blast after blast hooting through the stillness,
+shouting at the top of his voice as he scorched over the ground:
+
+"Mr. Narkom! Mr. Narkom! This way, sir, this way! This way!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+HOW THE CHASE ENDED
+
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Narkom and his zealous assistants had rushed wildly on,
+coming forth at last from the old railway arch into the narrow lane
+without so much as catching a glimpse or finding the slightest trace of
+either victim or murderer.
+
+But that they had not all been deceived by an hallucination of the
+night, received proof from the triumphant discovery of Sergeant Petrie,
+who, with the aid of his torch and the bull's-eye lantern of Constable
+Mellish, had found the unmistakable traces of hurried footsteps on the
+soft, yielding earth.
+
+"Lummy, sir! the place is alive with 'em," ejaculated Mellish. "This is
+the way he went, sir, down this 'ere lane, and makin' for the right of
+way across the fields, like wot that shuvver of yours said, sir."
+
+Narkom, Hammond, and Petrie were at his side before he had finished
+speaking. It was true, other footprints were there, all the lonely
+tree-girt road was full of them, going down the centre in one long,
+unbroken line. They stopped but a moment to make sure of this, then rose
+and dashed on in the direction which they led.
+
+Straight on, down the middle of the thoroughfare, without break or
+interruption, the foot-made trail drew them; under dripping
+overshadowing trees; by natural hedges and unnatural mounds where weeds
+and briars scrambled over piles of débris, and the light of their
+torches showed Narkom and his men the dim irregular outlines of a
+crumbling wall, green with moss and lichen and higher in parts than a
+man's head.
+
+On and still on, the deeply dug footprints lessening not a whit in their
+clearness, until, all of a moment, they swerved slightly to the left and
+then abruptly stopped--stopped dead short, and after that were seen no
+more!
+
+"Here's where he went!" called out Hammond, pointing to the left as
+Narkom and the others, in a sort of panic, went running round and
+endeavouring to pick up the lost trail. "Look, sir--grass here and the
+wall beyond. Hopped over on to the grass, that's what he did, then
+scaled the wall and 'went to earth' like an idiot in that old house
+Lennard told us of. Come along--quick!
+
+"Fair copped him, sir, as sure as eggs," he added excitedly, plunging in
+through the mist and the shadow of the trees until he came to the wall
+in question. "Break in the wall here, coping gone, dry dust of newly
+crumbled mortar on the grass. Got over here, Mr. Narkom--yes, and cut
+himself doing it. Hand, most likely; for there are bits of mortar with
+broken glass stuck in 'em lying about and a drop of fresh blood on the
+top of the wall!"
+
+A single look was enough, when Mr. Narkom came hurrying to his side, to
+verify all that had been said; and with an excited, "This way, all of
+you. Look sharp!" the superintendent sprang up, gripped the broken top
+of the wall, scrambled over it and dropped down into the darkness and
+mist upon the other side. The others followed his lead, and the next
+moment all were in the dark, walled-in enclosure in the middle of which
+the long-abandoned house known as Gleer Cottage stood. They could see
+nothing of it from where they were, for the mist and the crowded screen
+of long-neglected fruit trees shut it in as with a curtain.
+
+"Better let me go ahead and light the way, gents," said Constable
+Mellish in an excited whisper, as he again unshuttered his bull's-eye
+and directed its gleam upon the matted and tangled verdure. "Stout boots
+and thick trousers is what's wanted to tramp a path through these
+briars; them evening clothes of yours 'ud be torn to ribbons and your
+ankles cut to the bone before you'd gone a dozen yards. Lummy! there's
+another of his footprints--on the edge of that flower bed there! see!
+Come on, come on--quick!"
+
+Too excited and too much occupied with the work in hand to care who took
+the lead so that they got through the place and ran their quarry to
+earth, Narkom and the rest suffered the suburban constable to beat a way
+for them through the brambly wilderness, while with bodies bent, nerves
+tense as wire, treading on tiptoe along the trail that was being so
+cautiously blazed for them, they pressed on after him.
+
+Suddenly, without hint or warning, a faint metallic "click" sounded,
+the light they were following went suddenly out, and before Narkom,
+realizing that Mellish had sprung the shutter over the flame of his
+lamp, could voice a whispered inquiry, the constable's body lurched back
+against his own and a shaking hand descended upon his shoulder.
+
+"Don't move, don't speak, sir!" said Mellish's voice close to his ear.
+"We've got him right enough. He's in the house itself, and with a light!
+There's a board or something put up against the window to shield it, but
+you can see the light through the chinks--coming and going, sir, like as
+he was carrying it about."
+
+Startling as the statement was, when Narkom and the rest came on tiptoe
+to the end of the trampled path and peeped around the last screening
+bush into the open beyond, they found it to be the case.
+
+Blurred, shadowy, mist wrapped--like the ghost of a house set in a
+ghostly garden--there stood the long-abandoned building, its blank upper
+windows lost in the wrapping fog; its dreary face toward the distant
+road; its bleak, unlovely side fronting the point from which Narkom and
+his men now viewed it; and from one of the two side windows thin
+wavering lines of constantly shifting light issued from beneath the
+shadow of a veranda.
+
+"Candlelight, sir, and a draught somewhere, nobody moving about,"
+whispered Hammond. "Window or a door open--that's what makes the light
+rise and fall. What an ass! Barricaded the window and never thought to
+stop up the chinks. Lord, for a fellow clever enough to get away from
+the constable and the keeper in the manner he did, you'd never look for
+an idiot's trick like this."
+
+Narkom might have reminded him that it was an old, old failing on the
+part of the criminal class, this overlooking some trifling little point
+after a deed of almost diabolical cunning; but at present he was too
+much excited to think of anything but getting into that lighted room and
+nabbing his man before he slipped the leash again and escaped him.
+
+Ducking down he led a swift but soundless flight across the open space
+until he and his allies were close up under the shadow of the building
+itself, where he made the rather surprising discovery that the rear door
+was unlocked. Through this they made their way down a passage, at the
+end of which was evidently the room they sought, for a tiny thread of
+light lay between the door and the bare boards of the passage. Here they
+halted a moment, their nerves strung to breaking point and their hearts
+hammering thickly as they now heard a faint rustling movement and a
+noise of tearing paper sounding from behind it.
+
+For a moment these things alone were audible; then Narkom's hand shot
+upward as a silent signal; there was a concerted movement, a crash that
+carried a broken door inward and sent echoes bellowing and bounding from
+landing to landing and wall to wall, a gush of light, a scramble of
+crowding figures, a chorus of excited voices, and--the men of Scotland
+Yard were in the room.
+
+But no cornered criminal rose to do battle with them, and no startled
+outcry greeted their coming--nothing but the squeal and scamper of
+frightened rats bolting to safety behind the wainscot; a mere ripple of
+sound, and after it a silence which even the intruders had not breath
+enough to break with any spoken word.
+
+With peeling walls and mouldering floor the long, low-ceiled room gaped
+out before them, littered with fallen plaster and thick with dust and
+cobwebs. On the floor, in the blank space between the two boarded-up
+windows, a pair of lighted candles guttered and flared, while behind
+them, with arms outstretched, sleeves spiked to the wall--a human
+crucifix, with lolling head and bended knees--a dead man hung, and the
+light shining upon his distorted face revealed the hideous fact that he
+had been strangled to death.
+
+However many his years, they could not have totalled more than five and
+thirty at most, and ghastly as he was now, in life he must have been
+strikingly handsome: fair of hair and moustache, lean of loin and broad
+of shoulder, and with that subtle _something_ about him which mutely
+stands sponsor for the thing called birth.
+
+He was clad in a long gray topcoat of fine texture and fashionable
+cut--a coat unbuttoned and flung open by the same furious hand which had
+rent and torn at the suit of evening clothes he wore beneath.
+
+The waistcoat was wrenched apart and a snapped watch chain dangled from
+it, and on the broad expanse of shirt bosom thus exposed there was
+rudely smeared in thick black letters--as if a finger had been dipped
+for the purpose in blacking or axle grease--a string of mystifying
+numerals running thus:
+
+[Illustration: 2 X 4 X 1 X 2]
+
+For a moment the men who had stumbled upon this appalling sight stood
+staring at it in horrified silence; then Constable Mellish backed
+shudderingly away and voiced the first spoken word.
+
+"The Lord deliver us!" he said in a quaking whisper. "_Not_ the murderer
+himself, but the party as he murdered! A gent--a swell--strangled in a
+place like this! Gawd help us! what was a man like that a-doing of here?
+And besides, the shot was fired out there--on the Common--as you know
+yourselves. You heard it, didn't you?"
+
+Nobody answered him. For Narkom and his men this horrifying discovery
+possessed more startling, more mystifying, more appalling surprises than
+that which lay in the mere finding of the victim of a tragedy where they
+had been confident of running to earth the assassin alone. For in that
+ghastly dead thing spiked to the crumbling wall they saw again a man who
+less than four hours ago had stood before them in the full flower of
+health and strength and life.
+
+"Good God!" gasped Hammond, laying a shaking hand upon Narkom's arm.
+"You see who it is, don't you, sir? It's the Austrian gent who was at
+Clavering Close to-night-- Count Whats-his-name!"
+
+"De Louvisan--Count Franz de Louvisan," supplied Narkom agitatedly. "The
+last man in the world who _should_ have shown himself in the home of the
+man whose sweetheart he was taking away, despite the lady's own desires
+and entreaties! And to come to such an end--to-night--in such a place as
+this--after such an interview with the two people whose lives he was
+wrecking.... Good God!"
+
+A thought almost too horrible to put into words lay behind that last
+excited exclamation, for his eyes had fallen on a thin catgut halter--a
+violoncello string--thus snatched from its innocent purpose, and through
+his mind had floated the strains of the music with which Lady Katharine
+Fordham had amused the company but a short time before. He turned
+abruptly to his men and had just opened his mouth to issue a command
+when the darkness and silence without were riven suddenly by the hooting
+of a motor horn and the voice of Lennard shouting.
+
+"Stop!" commanded Narkom, as the men made an excited step toward the
+door. "Search this house--guard it--don't let any one enter or leave it
+until I come back. If any living man comes near it, arrest him, no
+matter who or what he is. But don't leave the place unguarded for a
+single instant--remember that. There's only one man in the world for
+this affair. Stop where you are until I return with him."
+
+Then he flung himself out of the room, out of the house, and ran as fast
+as he could fly in the direction of the tooting horn. At the point where
+the branching arm of the "Y" joined the main portion of Mulberry Lane,
+he caught sight of two huge, glaring motor lamps coming toward him
+through the mist and darkness. In a twinkling the limousine had halted
+in front of him, and Lennard was telling excitedly of that startling
+experience back there by the old railway arch.
+
+"A woman, sir--a young and beautiful woman! And she must have had
+something to do with this night's business, gov'ner, or why should she
+be wandering about this place at such a time? Hop in quick, sir, and
+I'll run you back to the spot where I saw her."
+
+At any other time, under any other circumstances, Narkom might, probably
+would, have complied with that request; but now---- A woman indeed! No
+woman's hand could have nailed that grim figure to the wall of Gleer
+Cottage, at least not alone, not without assistance. This he realized;
+and brushing the suggestion aside, jumped into the limousine and slammed
+the door upon himself.
+
+"Drive to Clarges Street! I must see Cleek! Full speed now! Don't let
+the devil himself stop you!" he cried; and in a moment they were
+bounding away townward at a fifty-mile clip that ate up the distance
+like a cat lapping cream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+THE SHADOW THAT LAY BEHIND
+
+
+It had but just gone midnight when the car slowed down before the house
+in Clarges Street. Here in company with his faithful henchman, Dollops,
+and attended upon by an elderly housekeeper and a deaf-and-dumb maid of
+all work, there dwelt--under the name and guise of "Captain Horatio
+Burbage," a superannuated seaman--that strange and original genius who
+chose to call himself "Hamilton Cleek," but who was known to the police
+of two continents by the sobriquet of "The Man of the Forty Faces."
+
+In the merest fraction of a minute Narkom was out of the limousine, had
+crossed the narrow pavement, mounted the three shallow steps, and was
+standing in the shadow of a pillared porch, punching a signal on the
+button of an electric bell. In all he could not have been kept waiting
+more than a minute, but it seemed forty times that length when he at
+last heard a bolt slip, and saw, in the gap of the open door, the figure
+of a slim, red-headed youth arrayed in a bed quilt, a suit of pink
+flannelette pajamas, and a pair of white canvas tennis shoes.
+
+"Come in, sir, come in quick!" this young man whispered, in the
+broadest of Cockney accents, as he opened the door just wide enough for
+Narkom to sidle into the semi-dark passage.
+
+"Where's your master, Dollops?" put in the superintendent. "Speak up! Is
+he in? I've got to see him at once!"
+
+The voice which answered came, not from Dollops, but from the dark top
+of the dim staircase.
+
+"Come up, Mr. Narkom," it said. "I thought that young beggar had gone to
+bed ages ago and was just coming down myself to let you in. Come along
+up. You know the way."
+
+Narkom acted upon the invitation so promptly that he was up the stairs
+and in the cozy, curtained, and lamp-lit room which Cleek called his den
+almost as quickly as his host himself. In fact, Cleek had scarcely time
+to sweep into the drawer of his writing table a little pile of something
+which looked like a collection of odds and ends of jewellery, bits of
+faded ribbon, and time-stained letters, and turn the key upon them,
+before the police official was at the door.
+
+"Hullo!" said Cleek in a tone of surprise and deep interest as the
+superintendent came fairly lurching into the room. "What's in the wind,
+Mr. Narkom? You look fairly bowled. Whisky and soda there--at your
+elbow--help yourself. I presume it is a case--nothing else would bring
+you here at this time and in such a state. What kind is it? And for
+whom? Some friend of yours or for the Yard?"
+
+"For both, I'm afraid," replied Narkom, pouring out a stiff peg of
+whisky and nervously gulping it down between words. "God knows I hope it
+may be only for the Yard, but considering what I know----Get your hat
+and coat. Come with me at once, Cleek. It's a murder--a mystery after
+your own heart. Lennard's below with the limousine. Come quickly, do,
+there's a dear chap. I'll tell you all about it on the way. The thing's
+only just been done--within the hour--out Wimbledon way."
+
+"I might have guessed that, Mr. Narkom, considering that you were to
+mingle duty with pleasure and spend the evening at Wimbledon with your
+old friend, Sir Philip Clavering," replied Cleek, rising at once.
+"Certainly I will go with you. Did you ever know the time when I
+wouldn't do all that I could to help the best friend I ever
+had--yourself? And if it is, as you hint, likely to be in the interest
+of the friend of _my_ friend----"
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, Cleek. God knows I hope it's a mistaken idea
+of mine; but when you have heard, when you have seen, how abominably
+things point to that dear boy of Clavering's and to the girl that dead
+fellow was conspiring with her father to take away from him----"
+
+"Oho!" interjected Cleek, with a strong rising inflection. "So there is
+that element in the case, eh?--love and a woman in distress! Give me a
+minute to throw a few things together and I am with you, my friend."
+
+"Thanks, old chap, I knew I could rely upon you! But don't stop to
+bother about a disguise, Cleek, it's too dark for anybody to see that it
+isn't 'the Captain' that's going out; and besides, there's everything of
+that sort in the limousine, you know. The street is as dark as a pocket,
+and there's nobody likely to be on the watch at this hour."
+
+The curious one-sided smile so characteristic of the man looped up the
+corner of Cleek's mouth; his features seemed to writhe, a strange,
+indefinable change to come over them as he put into operation his
+peculiar birth gift; and an instant later, but that he had not stirred
+one step and his clothing was still the same, one might have thought
+that a totally different man was in the room.
+
+"Will it matter _who_ watches?" he said, with just a suspicion of vanity
+over the achievement. "It will be--let us see--yes, a French gentleman
+whom we shall call 'Monsieur Georges de Lesparre' to-night, Mr. Narkom.
+A French gentleman with a penchant for investigating criminal affairs,
+and who comes to you with the strong recommendation of the Parisian
+police department. Now cut down to the limousine and wait for me, I'll
+join you presently. And, Mr. Narkom?"
+
+"Yes, old chap?"
+
+"As you go out, give Dollops directions where and how to get to the
+scene of the tragedy, and tell him to follow us in a taxi as
+expeditiously as possible."
+
+"Oh, Molly 'Awkins! There ain't no rest for the wicked and no feedin'
+for the 'ungry this side of Kensal Green--and precious little on the
+other!" sighed Dollops when he received this message. "Not four weeks it
+ain't since I was drug off in the middle of my lunch to go Cingalee
+huntin' in Soho for them bounders wot was after Lady Chepstow's 'Sacred
+Son,' and now here I am pulled out of my blessed pajamas in the middle
+of the night to go 'Tickle Tootsying' in the bally fog at Wimbledon!
+Well, all right, sir. Where the gov'ner goes, I goes, bless his 'eart;
+so you can look for me as soon as I can get out of these Eytalian
+pants."
+
+Narkom made no comment; merely went down and out to the waiting
+limousine and took his seat in it, full of a racking, nervous impatience
+that was like a consuming fire; and there Cleek found him, ten minutes
+later, when he jumped in with his kit bag and gave the signal which set
+Lennard to speeding the car back on its way to the scene of the
+mysterious tragedy.
+
+"Pull down the blinds and turn up the light, Mr. Narkom, so I can make a
+few necessary changes on the way," he said, opening the locker and
+groping round in the depths of it as the limousine scudded around the
+corner and tore off up Picadilly. "You can give me the particulars of
+the case while I'm making up. Come on--let's have them. How did the
+affair begin, and where?"
+
+Narkom detailed the occurrences of the night with the utmost clearness,
+from the moment when the shot and the cry attracted Lennard's attention
+to that when the ghastly discovery was made in the semi-ruined cottage.
+
+"Oho!" said Cleek, with one of his curious smiles. "So our friend the
+mysterious assassin disappeared in the middle of a sort of tunnel did
+he--and with a man at either end? Hum-m-m! I see, I see!"
+
+"Do you? Well, I'm blest if I do, then. There wasn't a place as big as
+your hand to hide anything in, much less shelter a man; and the fellow
+who could do a diabolical thing like that----"
+
+"That is a question which simply remains to be seen," interposed Cleek.
+"The thing is not so supernatural as it appears at first blush. Once--in
+the days that lie behind me, when I was the hunted and not the
+hunter--in that old 'Vanishing Cracksman' time of mine, I myself did
+that 'amazing disappearance' twice. Once in an alley in New York when
+there was a night watchman and a patrolman to be eluded; and once in
+Paris when, with Margot's lot, I was being hunted into a trap which
+would have been the end of one of the biggest coups of my career had I
+been nabbed that night."
+
+"Margot?" repeated Narkom. "Yes, I remember the Queen of the
+Apaches--the woman with whom you used to consort. Said she'd get even
+with you when you turned down the old life and took sides with the law
+instead of against it, I recollect. And you tell me that in those old
+days you practised a trick such as this fellow did to-night?"
+
+"Yes. Beat him at it--if you will pardon the conceit--for I vanished in
+the middle of a narrow passage with a sergeant de ville chasing me at
+one end and a concierge accompanied by a cabman and a commissionaire
+racing in at the other, I always fancied that that trick was original
+with me. I know of no one but Margot and her crew who were aware of the
+exploit, and if any man has borrowed a leaf from the book of those old
+times---- Oh, well, it will be the end of all your fears regarding any
+friend of ours, Mr. Narkom, for the fellow will stand convicted as a
+member of the criminal classes and, possibly, of Margot's crew. We shall
+know the truth of that when we get to the scene of this mysterious
+vanishment, my friend."
+
+"Yes, but how was it done, Cleek? Where did he go? How did he elude the
+chasing keeper and the waiting constable? A man can't vanish into thin
+air, and I tell you there wasn't a place of any sort for him to hide in.
+Yet you speak of the trick as if it were easy."
+
+"It _is_ easy, provided he had the same cause and adopted the same means
+as I did, my friend. Wait until we come to investigate that railway arch
+and you will see. Now tell me something, Mr. Narkom: How came you to be
+in the neighbourhood of Mulberry Lane at all to-night? It is nowhere
+near Clavering Close; and it was decidedly out of your way if, as you
+tell me, you were on the way back to town. It is peculiar that you
+should have chosen to go out of your way like that."
+
+"I didn't choose to do it. As a matter of fact I was executing a
+commission for Lady Clavering. It appears that a jewel had been found by
+the maid-in-attendance lying upon the floor of the ladies' room, and as
+Lady Clavering recollected seeing that jewel upon Miss Ailsa Lorne's
+person to-night, she asked me to stop at Wuthering Grange and return it
+to her."
+
+"Ailsa Lorne!" A light flashed into Cleek's face as he repeated the
+name, and rising into his eyes, made them positively radiant. "Ailsa
+Lorne, Mr. Narkom? You surely do not mean to tell me that Ailsa Lorne is
+in Wimbledon?"
+
+"Yes, certainly I do. My dear fellow, how the name seems to interest
+you. But I remember: you know the lady, of course."
+
+Know her? Know the woman whose eyes had lit the way back from those old
+days of crime to the higher and the better things, the woman who had
+been his redemption in this world, and would, perhaps, be his salvation
+in the one to come? Cleek's very soul sang hymns of glory at the bare
+thought of her.
+
+"I did not know Miss Lorne would be in Wimbledon," he said quietly, "or
+anywhere in the neighbourhood of London. I thought she had accepted a
+temporary position down in Suffolk as the companion of an old school
+friend, Lady Katharine Fordham."
+
+"So she did," replied Narkom. "And it is as that unhappy young lady's
+companion that she was at Clavering Close to-night. Lady Katharine, as
+you doubtless know, is Lord St. Ulmer's only child."
+
+"Lord St. Ulmer?" repeated Cleek, gathering up his brows thoughtfully.
+"Hum-m-m! Ah-h-h! I seem to remember something about a Lord St. Ulmer.
+Let me see! Lost his wife when his daughter was a mere baby, didn't he,
+and took the loss so much to heart that he went out to Argentina and
+left the girl to the care of an aunt? Yes, I recall it now. Story was in
+all the papers some months ago. Got hold of a silver mine out there;
+made a pot of money, and came home after something like fifteen years of
+absence; bought in the old family place, Ulmer Court, down in Suffolk,
+after it had been in the hands of strangers for a generation or two, and
+took his daughter down there to live. That's the man, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, that's the man. He's worth something like half a million sterling
+to-day--lucky beggar."
+
+"Then why do you allude to his daughter and heiress as an 'unhappy young
+lady'? Surely with unlimited wealth at her command----"
+
+"Which I dare say she would gladly give up to get back other things that
+she has lost," interposed Mr. Narkom. "Her hopes of becoming young Geoff
+Clavering's wife for one!"
+
+"Young Geoff Clavering? The chap whose coming of age was celebrated
+to-day?"
+
+"Yes, the son and heir of my friend, Sir Philip Clavering, as fine a boy
+as ever stood in shoe leather. He and Lady Katharine have almost grown
+up together, as her uncle and aunt, General and Mrs. Raynor, are close
+neighbours at Wuthering Grange. They were engaged at seventeen, a
+regular idyllic love match, old chap. Sir Philip and Lady Clavering were
+immensely fond of her and heartily approved the match. So apparently did
+her father, to whom she wrote, although she had not seen him since she
+was a baby. Even when he returned to England with a fortune big enough
+to warrant his daughter wedding a duke, he still appeared to approve of
+the engagement, and suggested that the wedding should be celebrated on
+the young man's twenty-first birthday."
+
+"Which, as to-day is that day, and you still speak of her as Lady
+Katharine Fordham, I presume did not take place?"
+
+"No, it did not. Some three months ago, a certain Count de Louvisan, an
+Austrian, appeared on the scene, claiming acquaintance with St. Ulmer;
+and it seems that after a subsequent interview, Lord St. Ulmer informed
+his daughter that her engagement with Geoff Clavering must come to an
+end, and that it was her father's intention that she should become the
+wife of Count de Louvisan."
+
+"Oho!" said Cleek, in two different tones. "All of which goes to suggest
+that the count had some hold over the old gentleman and was using it to
+feather his own nest. Of course the girl couldn't be compelled to marry
+the man against her will, so if she consented to the breaking of the
+engagement----Did she?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then something must have been told her--something which was either a
+lie or an appalling truth--to make her take a step like that, for a
+woman does not break with the man she loves unless something more than
+life is at stake. And it is this Count de Louvisan, you tell me, that
+has been murdered? Hum-m-m!"
+
+"Yes, the worst of it is," said Mr. Narkom gloomily, "there was a scene
+between him and young Clavering but a couple of hours before the murder
+was discovered."
+
+"What's that?" rapped out Cleek. "A 'scene'! A quarrel do you mean? How
+and where? Or perhaps you don't know?"
+
+"As it happens, I do," said Narkom, "for I happened to be at Clavering
+Close when it took place. You see, Lord St. Ulmer is laid up with a
+sprained ankle at Wuthering Grange, where he has been staying with his
+sister and brother-in-law, the Raynors. Lady Katharine seized the
+opportunity to say farewell to Geoff, and came over at about eight
+o'clock; and I hope, Cleek, I may never in my life again see anything so
+heartbreaking as was made those last few minutes of parting."
+
+"Few? Why few, pray?"
+
+"Because they had not been together half an hour when the Count de
+Louvisan came over, posthaste, after his fiancée. Lady Katharine's
+absence had been discovered from the Grange, and naturally he was the
+one who would come after her. You can guess what followed, Cleek. Young
+Clavering fairly flew at the fellow, and would have thrashed him but
+that his father and I got hold of him, and Hammond and Petrie hustled
+the count out of the room. But even so, nobody could prevent that wild,
+impetuous, excited boy from challenging the man, then and there. To that
+the count merely threw back a laugh and said, as Petrie and Hammond
+hustled him out of the room: 'Monsieur, one does not fight a fallen
+foe--one merely pities him!' And it took all his father's strength and
+mine to hold the boy in check. 'Pity yourself if ever I meet you!' he
+shouted. 'There'll be one blackguard the less in the world if ever I
+come within reach of you again, damn you! I had nine years of hope until
+you came, and I'll put a mark on you for every one of them that you've
+spoilt!"
+
+"'A mark'!" repeated Cleek, with some slight show of agitation. "A mark
+for every year? It is true that the barking dog is the last to bite
+but---- What were those figures that you tell me were smeared on the
+dead man's shirt bosom--2-4-1-2, were they not? And that sum equals
+nine!"
+
+"Yes," said Narkom, with a sort of groan. "Just nine, Cleek, just
+exactly nine. That's what cut the heart out of me when I saw that dead
+man spiked to the cottage wall, bearing the very mark he had sworn that
+he should bear."
+
+"I see," murmured Cleek thoughtfully. "Of course, the wisest of men are
+sometimes mistaken, but somehow I took those numerals to stand for a
+sign of a secret society; but, as you say, the numbers do indeed total
+nine--the years of young Clavering's threat, but----"
+
+His voice trailed off; he sat for a moment deep in thought.
+
+"Then there is the 'spike,' that is an old Apache punishment. They
+spiked Lanisterre to the wall when he went over to the police. Which is
+it? The Apaches or this foolish, hot-headed boy lover?"
+
+Narkom wisely refrained from comment. He knew the ways and methods of
+his famous ally only too well, and he sat silent therefore till Lennard
+pulled up the limousine sharply in front of Gleer Cottage.
+
+"Here we are at the cottage--unless you would like to see the arch
+first?"
+
+"Oh, no," Cleek smiled softly. "That part of the mystery, my friend, is
+quite simple. Lead the way, please."
+
+They alighted without further remark, and Narkom was followed by as
+complete a specimen of a French dandy as could be found in Paris, from
+the gardens of the Tuileries to the benches of the Luxembourg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+CLEWS AND SUSPICIONS
+
+
+A minute more and Cleek was in the house--in the presence of Hammond and
+Petrie--and Narkom had introduced him as "Monsieur Georges de Lesparre,
+a distinguished French criminologist who had come over to England this
+morning upon a matter connected with the French Police Department and
+who, in the absence of Mr. Cleek, had consented to take up this peculiar
+case."
+
+"My hat! Wouldn't that drive you to drink!" commented Petrie in a
+disgusted aside as he eyed this suave and sallow gentleman with open
+disapproval. "What will we be importing from the continent next,
+Hammond? As if there aren't detectives in England good enough to do the
+Yard's work without setting them to twiddling their blessed thumbs
+whilst a blooming Froggie runs the show and--beg pardon! what's that?
+Yes, Mr. Narkom. Searched the house from top to bottom, sir. Nobody in
+it, and nobody been here either, sir, not a soul since you left."
+
+"You are quite sure, monsieur?" This from Cleek. "About the 'nobody in
+the house,' I mean, of course. You are quite sure?"
+
+"Of course we're sure!" snapped Hammond savagely. "Been from the top to
+the bottom of it--me and Petrie and the constable here--and not a soul
+in it anywhere."
+
+"Ah, the constable, eh? You shall tell me, please, Mr. Narkom, is this
+the constable who was at the one end of the arch while the keeper was
+chasing the man in at the other? Ah, it is, eh? Well--er--shall not we
+see the keeper, too? I do not find him about and I should much like to
+speak with him. Where is he?"
+
+"Who--the keeper?" said Narkom. "Blest if I know. Is he about, my lads?"
+
+"No, sir. Ain't _been_ about--has he, Petrie?--for the Lord knows how
+long. Never thought of the beggar until this moment, sir."
+
+"Nor did I," said Narkom. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen the
+fellow since we came to the 'Y' of the road and found those footprints
+leading here. No doubt he has gone back to his shelter on the Common
+and---- Monsieur! Why are you smiling? Good God! you-- I---- Monsieur,
+shall I send my men for the fellow? Do you want to see him?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur Narkom, I want to see him very, very much indeed--if you
+can find him! But you can't, monsieur; and I fear me that you never
+will. What you will find, however, if you will send your men to the
+shelter of which you speak will be the _real_ keeper, either dead or
+stunned or gagged, and his coat and hat and badge removed from his body
+by the man who personated him."
+
+"Good heavens above, man, you don't mean to say----"
+
+"That you had the real criminal in your hands and let him go, that you
+talked with him, walked with him, were taken in by him, and that he told
+you no lie when he said the assassin really _did_ run into the arch,"
+replied Cleek quietly. "It is the old old trick of that fellow who was
+called the 'Vanishing Cracksman,' my friend: to knock down the fellow
+who first gives the alarm, rip off his clothing, and then to lead the
+hue and cry until there's a chance to steal away unobserved. Send your
+men to the keeper's shelter and see if I have guessed the truth of that
+little riddle or not. I'll lay you a sovereign, my friend, that your man
+has slipped the leash, and it will be but a fluke of fate if you ever
+lay hands on him again."
+
+In a sort of panic Narkom turned to his men and sent them flying from
+the house to investigate this startling assertion; and, turning as they
+went, Cleek walked into the room where that awful dead figure hung. He
+had taken but one step across the threshold, however, when he stopped
+suddenly and began to sniff the air--less to the surprise of Narkom, who
+had often seen him do this sort of thing before, than to Constable
+Mellish, who stood looking at him in open-mouthed amazement.
+
+"Good lud, man-- I should say, monsieur," exclaimed the superintendent
+agitatedly, "after what you have just hinted, my head is in a whirl and
+I am prepared for almost anything; but surely you cannot find anything
+suspicious in the mere atmosphere of the place?"
+
+"No; nothing but what you yourself must have observed. There is a
+distinct odour of violets in the room; so that unless that unhappy man
+yonder was of the kind that scents itself, we may set it down that a
+woman has been in here."
+
+"A woman? But no woman could do a thing like that," pointing to the
+position of the dead man. "Nor," after sniffing the air repeatedly, "do
+I notice anything of the odour which you speak."
+
+"Nor me nuther, sir," put in the constable.
+
+"Still, the odour is here," returned Cleek. "And--no! it does not
+emanate from the dead man. There is scent on him to be sure, but it is
+not the scent of violets. Odours last at best but a little time after
+the person bearing them has left the room, and as it must now be upward
+of an hour since the discovery of the crime----"
+
+Cleek sucked in his upper lip and took his chin between his thumb and
+forefinger and pinched it hard. What was that that Narkom had told him
+regarding Lennard's startling experience after he had been left on guard
+at the old railway arch? Hum-m-m! Certainly there was _one_ woman abroad
+in this neighbourhood to-night, and a woman decidedly _not_ of the lower
+classes at that, as witness the fact that she had worn an ermine cloak.
+Certainly, that would point to the wearer being a woman to whom money
+was no object--and to Lady Katharine Fordham, with all the great St.
+Ulmer wealth behind her, it assuredly was not. Clearly, then, whoever
+was or was not the actual perpetrator of this night's crime, a woman of
+the higher walk of life--a rich and fashionable woman, in fact--was in
+some way connected with it.
+
+The question was, did Lady Katharine Fordham possess an ermine cloak?
+And if she did, would she be likely to have brought it up from Suffolk
+at this time of the year? The curious smile slid down his cheek and
+vanished. He turned to Mr. Narkom, who had been watching him anxiously
+all the time.
+
+"Well, my friend, let us poke about a bit more till your assistants get
+back from the shelter on the Common," he said and dropped down on his
+knees, examining every inch of the flooring with the aid of a pocket
+torch and a magnifying glass. For some moments nothing came of this, but
+of a sudden Narkom saw him come to an abrupt halt.
+
+Twitching back his head, he sniffed at the air, two or three times,
+after the manner of a hound catching up a lost scent; then he bent over,
+brought his nose close to the level of the bare and dirty boards,
+sniffed again, blew aside the dust, and exposed to view a tiny grease
+spot not bigger than a child's thumbnail.
+
+"_Huile Violette!_" he said, with a sound as of satisfied laughter in
+his voice. "No wonder the scent of violets lingered. Look! here is
+another spot--and here another," he added, blowing the dust away and
+creeping on all fours in the direction the perfumed trail led. "Oh, I
+know this stuff well, my friend," he went on. "For many, many years its
+manufacture was a secret known only to the Spanish monks who carried it
+with them to South America and subsequently established in that part of
+the country now known as Argentina a monastery celebrated all over the
+world as the only source from which this essential oil could be
+procured."
+
+"Argentina?" repeated Narkom agitatedly. "My dear chap, have you
+forgotten that it was in Argentina Lord St. Ulmer spent those many years
+of his self-imposed exile? If then, the stuff is only to be procured
+there----"
+
+"Gently, gently--you rush at top speed, Mr. Narkom. I said '_was_,'
+recollect. It is still the chief point of its manufacture, but since
+those days when the Spanish monks carried it there others have learned
+the secret of it, notably the Turks who now manufacture an attar of
+violets just as they have for years manufactured an attar of roses. It
+is enormously expensive; for the veriest drop of it is sufficient, with
+the necessary addition of alcohol, to manufacture half a pint of the
+perfume known to commerce as 'Extract of Violet.' At one time it was a
+favourite trick of very great ladies to wear on a bracelet a tiny golden
+capsule containing two or three drops of it and supplied with a minute
+jewelled stopper attached to a slender golden chain, which stopper they
+occasionally removed for a moment or two that the aroma of the contents
+might diffuse itself about them. I knew one woman--and one only--who
+possessed such a bracelet. You, too, have heard of her. Whatever her
+real name may be, she is simply known to those with whom she associates
+as 'Margot.'"
+
+"Scotland! The queen of the Apaches?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are sure of that?"
+
+"I ought to be. I, myself, stole the bracelet from the collection of the
+Comte de Champdoce and presented it to her. I remember that the stopper
+to the capsule was carved from a single emerald that, owing to its
+age--it was said to have belonged in its day to Catherine de
+Medicis--had worn loose, and could only be prevented from dropping out
+and allowing the contents to drip away by wedging it into the orifice in
+the capsule by winding the stopper with silk."
+
+Narkom's face positively glowed.
+
+"My dear Cleek, you give me the brightest kind of hope," he said
+enthusiastically, as he stooped and investigated the tiny, perfumed
+grease spots on the floor, so clearly made by the dropping of some oily
+substance that there could be no question regarding their origin. "Then,
+there can be no possibility of connecting young Geoff Clavering or the
+girl he loves with this ghastly business if that Margot woman has been
+here, and it was from her bracelet that these stains were dropped?
+Besides, after what you said about that fellow of her crew who was
+spiked to the wall as this poor wretch here is----"
+
+"A moment, my friend--you are on the rush again," interjected Cleek.
+"All that we actually _know_, at present, Mr. Narkom, is that some one,
+and very likely a woman, has been here and--unconsciously, of
+course--has spilled some drops of a very valuable and highly
+concentrated perfume. This naturally points to a defective stopper to
+the article containing that perfume, but whether or not that defective
+stopper was one carved from a single emerald and wound with silk----"
+
+He stopped and let the rest of the sentence go by default. All the while
+he had been speaking he had been following, after the manner of a hound
+on the scent, the trail of that perfume's lead; now it had brought him
+to a litter of rat-gnawed paper and a parcel containing a peach and the
+remnants of a roasted fowl. As if the scent seemed stronger here than
+elsewhere--so strong, in fact, that it was suggestive of a goal--he
+began tossing the scraps about, till at last he gave a sort of cry and
+pounced upon something in a distant corner.
+
+"Cleek!" rapped out Narkom in an excited but guarded tone, as he noted
+this, "Cleek, you have found something? Something that decides?"
+
+"Yes," the detective made answer. "Something which proves that, whoever
+the woman who dropped the scent may be, Mr. Narkom, she was _not_
+Margot!"
+
+He unclosed his hand and stretched it out toward the superintendent, and
+Narkom saw lying on his palm a crushed and gleaming thing which looked
+like a child's gold thimble that had been trodden upon. The snapped
+fragment of a hairlike gold chain still clung to it, and at the end of
+this dangled a liliputian stopper, a wee mite of a thing that was little
+more than a short, thick pin of plain, unjewelled, unornamented gold.
+
+"One of the 'capsules' of which I spoke, you see," said Cleek, "and
+bearing not the slightest resemblance to the one belonging to Margot.
+The thing has snapped from its fastening and been trodden upon--trodden
+under a very heavy foot, I should say, from the condition of it. There
+is something engraved upon it, something that won't tend to ease your
+mind, Mr. Narkom. Take my glass and look at it."
+
+Narkom did so. Engraved on the crushed and fragrant-smelling bit of gold
+he saw a coat-of-arms--arms which he, at least, knew to be those of the
+house of St. Ulmer--and under this the name "Katharine."
+
+"Good Lord!" he said, and let the crushed bauble fall back upon the palm
+from which he had lifted it. "That child--that dear girl who is as much
+as life itself to young Geoff Clavering? But how could she--a slip of a
+girl like that----"
+
+He turned and looked over at the dead figure spiked to the cottage wall.
+
+Cleek made no reply--at least for the moment. He had gone back to the
+"hound's trick" of sniffing the trail and was creeping on again--_past_
+the litter of papers this time--and crawling on all fours toward the
+very doorway by which the police had first gained access to the room.
+
+"Wait! Cross no bridges until you come to them," he said at last in an
+excited whisper. "Some one who trod upon that thing passed out this way.
+I _knew_ I smelt the oil the very instant I crossed the threshold; now I
+can understand why. The assassin left by the very door you entered, but
+whether man or woman----"
+
+By now the trail had led him to the very threshold of the room. Beyond
+lay the dark hall by which Narkom and his men had entered the house, and
+the light of his upraised electric torch shining out into that black
+passage showed him something that made his pulses leap. It was simply a
+fragment of some soft pinkish material, caught and torn off from a
+woman's skirt by a nail head that protruded above the level of the
+boarded floor. He rose and ran out to it; he caught it up and examined
+it; then, with a laugh, shut his hand over it and went hurriedly back to
+the superintendent's side.
+
+"Mr. Narkom," he said, "tell me something! We have, presumably, found a
+perfume receptacle belonging to the Lady Katharine Fordham; but did you
+notice--can you remember what manner of frock her ladyship wore at
+Clavering Close to-night?"
+
+"I remember it very well indeed. It was a simple white satin frock, very
+plain and very girlish, and she wore a bunch of purple pansies with it."
+
+"Ah-h-h!" Cleek's voice was full of relief, his eyes full of sparkle and
+life. "Then she did _not_ wear a gown of some soft, gauzy pink material,
+eh? An airy sort of gown trimmed at the hem with scalloped embroidery
+of rose-coloured silk. Good! Can you remember any lady to-night that
+did?"
+
+"Yes," said Narkom promptly. "Miss Ailsa Lorne did. She wore some soft,
+gauzy pink stuff--chiffon, I think I've heard the wife call it--with a
+lot of rose-coloured silk stitchery on the edges of the flounces, and
+she had a band of pink ribbon in her hair."
+
+Cleek made no comment, nor did his countenance betray even the slightest
+trace of emotion. He simply put the shut hand that held that gauzy pink
+fragment into his pocket and shoved it far down out of sight.
+
+A while ago he could have sworn that Ailsa Lorne's foot had never
+crossed the threshold of this house of crime; now he knew that it had,
+and if the evidence of this scrap of chiffon stood for anything, crossed
+it _after_ she had left Clavering Close--after she had heard that threat
+against the Count de Louvisan's life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+THE RIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
+
+
+Before Mr. Narkom could ask any questions, the sound of excited voices
+and hasty footsteps coming up the drive and making toward the lonely
+house drove all other thoughts from his head.
+
+"Come along," he whispered to Cleek. "It's Hammond and Petrie returning
+from the keeper's shelter on the Common. I know their voices. And they
+have unearthed something startling or they wouldn't be talking so
+excitedly."
+
+They had, indeed, as he learned when he hurried out and intercepted them
+at the cottage steps; for between them they were supporting a man
+stripped of coat, waistcoat, and hat, and wearing bound round his head a
+bloodstained handkerchief. His bearded face was bruised and battered,
+his shirt and trousers were covered with mud, and he was so weak from
+loss of blood that it was next to impossible for him to stand alone.
+
+"Sir," broke out Hammond, as they came up with Mr. Narkom and paused
+with this unexpected newcomer before him, "I don't know whether that
+French mounseer is a wizard or not, but he copped the lay at the first
+guess, Mr. Narkom, and foreigner or not I take off my blessed hat to
+him. Here's what we found when we got to the shelter, sir--this here
+party, knocked senseless, tied up like a trussed fowl, and tucked out of
+sight under the gorse bushes nigh the shelter. Coat, cap, badge, and
+truncheon all gone, sir--nicked by that dare-devil who took us in so
+nicely down there at the old railway arch. The murderer himself he were,
+I'll lay my life; for look here, sir, here's what he most brained this
+poor chap with--a hammer, sir--look! And a hammer was used, wasn't it,
+to spike that dead man to the wall? Had him, Mr. Narkom, had the rascal
+in our very hands, that's what we did, sir, and then like a parcel of
+chuckleheads we went and let him go."
+
+"It is a trick that has succeeded with others besides yourselves," said
+Cleek, who had been bending over the injured man. He looked up at Narkom
+significantly. "Monsieur, I expect my assistant here any minute now.
+Would it not be as well to report this shocking affair to the local
+authorities?"
+
+"Certainly, monsieur!" agreed Narkom, who had forgotten that Dollops
+might arrive now at any moment.
+
+"What about this poor chap here, sir?" interposed Petrie. "He's in a
+desperately bad way. Oughtn't we to take him with us, and turn him over
+to the hospital folk?"
+
+"Non--that is, not yet, my friend," softly interposed Cleek. "Your good
+superintendent and I will look after him for a little time. There is a
+question or two to ask. He will bear the strain of talking now better
+than he might be able to do later. Notify the hospital officials as you
+pass through the town proper, and have an ambulance sent out. That's
+all. You may go."
+
+"Well, so help me," began the indignant Petrie, then discreetly shut up
+and went. A moment later the limousine had whizzed away into the mist
+and darkness with the three men, and Cleek and Narkom were alone with
+the injured keeper.
+
+"I expect that is Dollops in his taxi," whispered Cleek. "I thought I
+heard the sound of a motor. That will obliterate every track if you
+don't stop him. Head him off if you can, dear chap, and set him to work
+directly you have dismissed the taxi. Tell Dollops to measure and make a
+drawing of every footmark in and about the place. Quickly, please,
+before it is too late."
+
+Mr. Narkom hurried off and vanished in the mist, leaving his ally alone
+with the dying man, for that he was dying there could be no question.
+
+A bullet had gone through his body; a hammer had battered in the back of
+his head; he was but partly conscious--with frequent lapses into
+complete insensibility--and the marvel was not that he occasionally
+uttered some wandering, half-coherent sentences, but that he was able to
+speak at all.
+
+"My poor chap," Cleek said feelingly, as he administered a stimulant by
+which the keeper's flagging energies were whipped up. "Try to
+speak--try to answer a question or two--try--for a woman's sake."
+
+"A woman's?" he mumbled feebly. "Aye, my poor wife-- Gawd 'elp her--her
+and the kiddies! And me a-goin' 'ome, sir--me a-gettin' of my death like
+this for jist a-doin' of my duty--doin' of it honest and true, sir, for
+king and country!"
+
+"And both letting you face the nightly peril of it unarmed!" said Cleek
+bitterly; then, passionately: "Will you wake up, England? Will you wake
+up and do justice by these men who give their lives that you may sleep
+in peace, and who, with a badge and a truncheon and two willing hands,
+must fight your criminal classes and keep law and order for you?"
+
+"Aye--some day, may like--some day, sir," mumbled the dwindling voice;
+then it trailed off and sank sobbingly away, and Cleek had to administer
+more brandy to bolster up his fading strength.
+
+"A word," he said eagerly, the hammering of his heart getting into his
+voice and making it unsteady. "Just one word, but much depends upon it.
+Tell me--now--before anybody comes: Who did it? Man or woman?"
+
+"I dunno, sir-- I didn't see. The mist was thick. Whoever it was, come
+at me from behind. But there was two--there must have been two--one as I
+heard a-runnin' toward me when I challenged, sir, and--and got shot down
+like a dog; and 'tother as come at me in the back when I sang out
+'Murder' and blew my whistle for help. But men or women, whichever it
+may a-been, I never see, sir, never. But one woman _was_ on the Common
+to-night. A lady, sir--oh, yes, a lady indeed."
+
+"A lady? Speak to me--quickly--my friend is returning. What did that
+lady wear? Was it a pink dress? Or couldn't you see?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I could see--she came near me--she spoke in passing. She gave
+me a bit of money, sir, and asked me not to mention about her bein' out
+there to-night and me havin' met her. But it wasn't a pink dress, sir;
+it was green--all shiny pale green satin with sparklin' things on the
+bosom and smellin' like a field o' voylits on a mornin' in May!"
+
+The sense of unspeakable thankfulness that Cleek experienced upon
+hearing that the dress of this unknown "lady" was not pink, was lost in
+a twinkling in one of utter and overwhelming surprise at learning that
+it was _green_! Pink, white, and green, here were three evening dresses
+called into the snare of this night's mystery; and yet a _third_ woman
+now involved. White satin, that had been Lady Katharine Fordham's gown
+to-night; pink chiffon, that had been Ailsa Lorne's. Who then was the
+wearer of the pale green satin gown? Here was the riddle of the night
+taking yet another perplexing turn.
+
+A clatter of hasty footsteps came along the drive and up the steps to
+the veranda, and Narkom, in a state of violent excitement, stood beside
+him.
+
+"All right," he said, answering Cleek's inquiring glance. "I headed the
+taxi off and set Dollops to work as you suggested--and a blessed good
+thing I did, too, otherwise we might have lost valuable clues."
+
+"There _were_ footsteps then?"
+
+"Footsteps? Great Scott, yes, heaps of them: the absolute continuation
+of those which led me and my men to this house. But the madness of the
+thing, the puzzle of the thing! No man on earth can run away in two
+directions, yet there the blessed things are, going down the road at
+full tilt and coming back up it again still on a dead run. Two lines of
+them, old chap, one going and the other returning and both passing by
+the gate of this house. By it, do you hear?--_by_ it, and never once
+turning in; yet in the garden we have found marks that correspond with
+them to the fraction of a hair, and we know positively that the fellow
+_did_ come in here. It licks me, Cleek--it positively licks me. It's
+beyond all reason."
+
+"Yes," admitted Cleek, thinking of the green satin dress. "It is, Mr.
+Narkom, it certainly is."
+
+"Dollops will bring the drawings he's making to you as soon as he has
+covered all the ground," resumed the superintendent almost immediately.
+"Clever young dog that and no mistake. But to return to our muttons, old
+chap. Did you get anything out of this poor fellow? Any clue to the
+party who assaulted him?"
+
+"None. He doesn't know. For one thing, the mist prevented him seeing his
+assailant, and for another, he was first shot down by some one who was
+running toward him and answered his challenge with a bullet, and then
+pounced upon by somebody else who was behind him and floored him with
+the hammer. I take it that the person who was running and who fired the
+shot was advancing toward him from this direction--was, in fact, the
+actual assassin--and that having discharged the pistol and caused this
+poor fellow to whistle a call for assistance to the constable in
+Mulberry Lane, he was put to it to get out of the box in which he found
+himself by those two things. To escape across the Common meant to be
+pursued by the constable and driven across the track of one of the other
+keepers; so he took the bold hazard of putting on this poor chap's coat,
+cap, and badge and playing at joining in the hue and cry in the manner
+he did. Is that"--turning to the dying man--"the truth of it?"
+
+The keeper could only nod--he was now too far gone to make any verbal
+response, and even the administering of another dose of brandy failed to
+whip up his expiring strength.
+
+"I'm afraid we shall never get any more out of him, poor fellow," said
+Cleek feelingly. "He is lapsing into unconsciousness, you see. Raise him
+a bit, make him a little more comfortable if pos---- Quick! Catch his
+head, Mr. Narkom! Don't let it strike the boards. Gone!--a good true
+servant of the public gone! And the blackguard that killed him still at
+large!"
+
+Then he gently folded the useless hands and closed down the sightless
+eyes, and shaking out the coat which Petrie had bundled into a pillow,
+spread it over the dead man and was very, very still for a little time.
+
+"There's a widow--and some little nippers, Mr. Narkom," he said when he
+at length rose to his feet. "Find them out for me, will you? And if you
+can see your way to offer a good substantial reward for the clearing up
+of this case and the capture of the criminal, I'll pull it off and you
+may pay that reward to the mother of this man's children."
+
+"Cleek, my dear fellow! How ridiculously quixotic. What on earth can you
+be thinking about?"
+
+"A woman, Mr. Narkom--just a woman--and a few little nippers ... who
+might take the wrong road as--well, as somebody I know of took it
+once--if there wasn't a hand to help them or a friend to guide. That's
+all, dear friend, that's all!"
+
+Lifting his hat to that silent, covered figure, he turned and walked
+away. But at the foot of the steps leading down to the mist and darkness
+of the drive he came to a halt; and there Narkom, following almost
+instantly, joined him again.
+
+"My dear fellow, of all the impulsive, of all the amazing men," he
+began; but got no further, for Cleek's upthrown hand checked him.
+
+"We won't go into that, Mr. Narkom," he said. "We'll stick to the case,
+please. I've got something to tell you that you haven't heard as yet.
+Something that that poor dead chap did manage to tell me. A woman--a
+lady--was out there on the Common to-night and paid him not to disclose
+the fact."
+
+"Great Scott! My dear fellow, you don't surely mean to hint that by any
+possibility that poor child, Lady Katharine Fordham----"
+
+"No, I do not. The lady in question was neither Lady Katharine Fordham,
+who, you tell me, wore a white satin dress to-night, nor yet Miss Ailsa
+Lorne, whose frock you say was of gauzy pink. The lady in question wore,
+I understand, a gown of very pale green satin with what I take to have
+been several diamond ornaments upon the corsage; furthermore, a delicate
+but very distinct odour of violets clung about her."
+
+"Good Lord!"
+
+"No wonder you are surprised, Mr. Narkom. Ladies dressed in that fashion
+are not, as a general thing, given to wandering about Wimbledon Common
+either by night or by day, and the presence of this particular one is
+curious, to say the least of it. I am of the opinion, however, that she
+was no stranger to the Common keeper, otherwise he would have hurried
+her into the shelter the instant she offered to bribe him, whistled up
+the constable in Mulberry Lane, and given her in charge as a suspicious
+character. Then there is another side to the affair which we must not
+overlook. An entertainment was in progress at Clavering Close to-night,
+and there must have been quite a number of ladies present dressed in
+gala attire. But if your exclamation means that you have no
+recollection of seeing one who wore a gown of pale green satin----"
+
+"It doesn't!" rapped in Narkom excitedly. "It was the absurdity, the
+madness, the--the utter impossibility of the thing. That she--she of all
+women----! What rot!"
+
+"Oho!" said Cleek, with a strong, rising inflection. "Then there _was_
+such a gown in the rooms at Clavering Close to-night, eh? And you do
+remember the lady that wore it?"
+
+"Remember her? There's nobody I should be likely to remember better. It
+was Lady Clavering herself!"
+
+"Whew-w! The hostess?"
+
+"Yes. Sir Philip's wife--young Geoff's stepmother; one of the sweetest,
+gentlest, most womanly women that ever lived. And to suggest that she
+... either the fellow must have deliberately lied or his statement was
+the delusion of a dying man. It couldn't have happened--it simply
+couldn't, Cleek. Why, man, her ladyship was there--at the Close--when I
+left. It was she who put that jewel into my hand and asked me to leave
+it at Wuthering Grange when----"
+
+He stopped, biting his words off short and laying a nervous grip on
+Cleek's arm; and Cleek, facing about abruptly, leaned forward into the
+mist and darkness, listening.
+
+For of a sudden, a babble of angry voices, mingled with the sounds of a
+scuffle, had risen from the road beyond the gates, and hard on the
+heels of it there now rang forth sharply the shrill tones of Dollops
+crying out at the top of his voice:
+
+"None o' yer larks, now! Got yer! Gov'ner! Mr. Narkom! This way! Come
+quick, will yer? I've copped the bounder. Out here in the bushes under
+this blessed wall!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+A LITTLE DISCREPANCY
+
+
+The distance between the gates of Gleer Cottage and the porch wherein
+lay the body of the dead keeper was by no means a short one, but at the
+first sound of Dollops's voice the two men sped down the centre of the
+dark, mist-wrapped drive and out into the lane, their electric pocket
+torches sending two brilliant streams of light in front of them. The
+sounds of scuffling feet and of wrangling voices guided them along the
+broken, irregular line of the crumbling brick wall which encircled the
+grounds of the cottage, and following the lead of them, they came
+presently upon an amazing picture.
+
+Close to that identical spot where, earlier in the night, Hammond had
+found the gap in the wall, two figures struggled together: the one, in a
+vain endeavour to free himself from the clutches of his captor; the
+other intent on bringing him to the ground, on which lay scattered all
+the drawings and paraphernalia with which Dollops had evidently been
+carrying out his master's instructions. The light of the torches
+revealed his prisoner to be a sturdy, fair-haired young man, and a first
+glance showed Cleek that he was arrayed in a fashionable light-weight
+overcoat which, torn open in the struggle, showed him also to be in
+immaculate evening dress. It hardly needed Mr. Narkom's startled
+exclamation, "Geoff!" to tell the detective that this was indeed the son
+and heir of Sir Philip Clavering, the young man whose bitter threats
+against the dead man in the cottage had been so swiftly carried out.
+
+But the exclamation had a far-reaching effect upon Dollops's prisoner,
+for he ceased struggling at once and faced round upon the superintendent
+so that the full glare of the torches could fall upon his features and
+leave not a shadow of doubt regarding his identity.
+
+"Hullo! Mr. Narkom!" he exclaimed. "This _is_ a stroke of good luck and
+no mistake! Who and what is this enterprising individual upon my back? I
+can't see his interesting face, for he pounced upon me in the dark; but
+if I had known that his yells and cries were likely to bring _you_ upon
+the scene, I certainly shouldn't have gone to the length of struggling
+and getting my clothes in this awful mess."
+
+Cleek made a mental tally of that remark, and set alongside of it the
+circumstance that Dollops, when he first called out, had most distinctly
+mentioned Mr. Narkom by name. He said nothing, however; merely removed
+the pressure of his thumb from the controlling button of his torch,
+slipped that useful article into his pocket, and busied himself with
+picking up Dollops's effects from the ground.
+
+"Here you, whoever you are! You keep your blessed thievin' irons off
+them things!" snapped Dollops, with a wink at the superintendent. "I
+say, Mr. Narkom, sir, don't let that josser go carryin' off my
+drorin's--them's for my gov'ner, _you_ know that. And, sir," he went on
+earnestly, "don't you be took in by none of the gammon of this 'ere
+person. Actin' suspicious and creepin' along in the dark he was when I
+'opped up and copped him, sir, and no matter if he _is_ a party as
+you're acquainted with, sir----"
+
+"He is," interrupted the superintendent curtly, not, however, without
+some slight show of agitation at finding this particular young man in
+the neighbourhood at this particular time. "The gentleman is Mr.
+Geoffrey Clavering, my friend Sir Philip Clavering's son and heir."
+
+"Well, sir, I can't 'elp that," began Dollops, but his words were
+interrupted by the captive himself.
+
+"I shouldn't have blamed you if you had failed to recognize me from the
+state I'm in through the mistaken ardour of this enterprising youth, Mr.
+Narkom," he said. "He appears not to have left one inch of my person
+unmarked with his hands; and if you would oblige me by requesting him to
+detach himself from me as expeditiously as possible, I shall be
+unspeakably obliged."
+
+"Certainly, Geoff. Dollops, let the gentleman go."
+
+"But, sir-- Mr. Narkom----"
+
+"Stand back, I tell you!"
+
+"But upon my sacred word of honour, sir----"
+
+"You have heard what I said, haven't you? That's enough," interrupted
+Narkom, sharply.
+
+Dollops gave a swift glance at Monsieur Georges de Lesparre's face, then
+sullenly relinquished his hold on his prisoner, and with a knowing wink
+over his shoulder, busied himself with picking up his scattered and
+muddied papers.
+
+"A jolly cheeky young beggar that, Mr. Narkom; I wonder you take his
+impertinences so lightly," said young Clavering, who seemed, somehow, to
+have lost a little of his self-possession now that it became evident the
+matter of his presence must inevitably be the topic of conversation. "I
+say, send him away, won't you? And if you would--er--send your friend
+away, too, I'd be obliged. I'd like to have a little conversation with
+you in private, if you don't mind."
+
+"Certainly, Geoff. Dollops, take yourself off--hot shot!"
+
+"Me, sir? My hat! Where'll I go? Wot'll I do, sir?"
+
+"Go and continue what you were told to do in the first place. Gather up
+your traps, and be off about it."
+
+"Oh, yuss--of course--nuthink easier than _that_ after the way as the
+gent 'ere has went gallopin' all over 'em with his muddy boots!" said
+Dollops with apparent disgust. "Look at that for a sample of drorin',
+will yer?"
+
+He slyly twitched the corner of his eye round in Cleek's direction,
+turned the mud-stained paper so that he should see the footprint, and
+mumbling and muttering shambled away in the direction of the cottage and
+disappeared in the mist and darkness.
+
+"I'm afraid, Geoff," went on Narkom as soon as Dollops had gone, "that I
+can't humour you to the extent of requesting this gentleman, too, to
+leave us; but let me have the pleasure of introducing him--Monsieur
+Georges de Lesparre, the famous French criminologist. We are engaged
+together upon a very serious matter to-night. In short, an exceptionally
+ghastly murder has been committed since I left Clavering Close, Geoff,
+and you will be horrified to hear----"
+
+"Gently, gently, monsieur," softly interposed Cleek, who, while
+appearing to be absorbed in acknowledging the introduction, had been
+quietly taking in every detail relative to the young man's appearance
+and had decided offhand that he liked him; that he was simply a
+handsome, straight-looking, frank-faced, clear-eyed young fellow who, in
+the general order of things, ought not to have one evil impulse in him.
+"Shall one go into details that may, possibly, be unnecessary?" he went
+on. "Perhaps Mr. Clavering has already heard of the crime, and it is
+that which is accountable for his presence in this neighbourhood."
+
+In his heart he knew that there was no such possibility, that there was
+not even the ghost of a chance that news of the murder could so soon
+have gotten abroad when even the local police had not yet learned of
+it, and he threw out this "feeler" hoping that young Clavering would rid
+himself of any shadow of complicity by at once rejecting it. To his
+disappointment, however, Geoff rose to it as a trout to a fly; and his
+face, which had betrayed a strong effort to repress an overwhelming
+agitation from the instant Narkom made mention of the crime, now lit
+with something like relief and thankfulness.
+
+"Yes, that's the case. You have guessed it, monsieur," he said
+gratefully, a sound that seemed a curious blend of a sigh and a sob
+getting into his voice despite an effort to keep it level and
+emotionless. "I had gone to bed--that is, I mean to say I was getting
+ready to go to bed--but I knew I shouldn't be able to sleep, so I came
+down into the grounds for a walk and a smoke. The open air always does
+me good. All at once a motor came along with Mellish, the police
+constable, in it. I stopped him, and he told me of this awful thing. I
+nearly went mad. To think what it means to my dear girl! She hasn't
+heard yet, of course----"
+
+"No," said Mr. Narkom. "She will have to be told in the morning. Poor
+girl, it will be a shock to her, but it means a great obstacle removed
+from your path."
+
+"Yes," agreed the young man uneasily. "That's what made me so anxious to
+come here and find out for myself if the murderer had been traced. You
+see I lost my head a bit to-night," he added half apologetically, "and
+you never know what people will say, so I was just coming cautiously
+along when that cheeky young chap threw himself on me, mistaking me, I
+suppose, for the assassin."
+
+He made an attempt to laugh, but even to Mr. Narkom it was palpable that
+the young fellow was making a desperate effort to cover up his
+agitation.
+
+"You can't, in the circumstances, blame him for that, Geoff," replied
+Narkom. "Besides, it was a most indiscreet thing for you--you of all
+men--to come here to-night, especially after what happened at the
+Close."
+
+"You mean about my threatening De Louvisan?"
+
+"Yes. At least twenty or thirty persons heard that; and although after
+you were calmer and the Austrian had left the house, you excused
+yourself to your guests and were said to have gone to your room for the
+night----"
+
+"I did go to it!" rapped in Geoff excitedly. "Purviss, my valet, will
+prove that if there's any question regarding it. Simply because I didn't
+have the heart to indulge in any more dancing or tomfoolery of that sort
+when my dear girl had been dragged away from me as though I were a
+leper. Good God, Mr. Narkom! _you_ don't believe I had anything to do
+with this awful thing, do you?"
+
+Cleek took the reins before Narkom could utter so much as a single word.
+
+"Of a certainty he does not, monsieur. Who could on so slight a thing as
+the mere hot-headed outburst of an excited young man?" he said suavely,
+making, as was his way, a cunning hazard that should at once prove or
+disprove a suspicion that lay at the back of his head. "And to base it
+upon no stronger circumstance than that you afterward left the
+drawing-room and did not return! Ridiculous! One might as well suspect
+Lady Clavering herself when she, too, was obliged to retire and leave
+her guests for the time, if merely absenting one's self is to be
+regarded as suspicious. It is what you Anglais shall call 'tommyrot,'
+that, eh?"
+
+"Of course it is, monsieur--er--what's-your-name--of course!" assented
+Geoff gratefully, rather liking this suave and gentle Frenchman who
+seemed bent upon coming to his rescue and showing him the way out
+whenever matters took an awkward turn. "You're a jolly, sharp-sighted
+chap, you are, and you spot the weak points in these affairs like a
+shot. My stepmother doesn't often suffer from headaches, but just as it
+happens, she was so queer that she had to lie down for about an hour;
+but her maid can prove that she stopped in her room, just as Purviss can
+vouch for it that I remained in mine."
+
+The curious one-sided smile moved up Cleek's left cheek, then vanished
+again.
+
+"Quite so, quite so," he said blandly. "Besides, it is not with Lady
+Clavering that we are concerned, but with the owner of a jewel that we
+found on the spot--a little gold scent bangle that smelt of violets----"
+
+"My God! Kathie's! She said she lost it!" cried Geoffrey through his
+clenched teeth; then realizing what his words meant, he turned on the
+two men fiercely.
+
+"What do you mean? What are you trying to infer? That she--my dear
+girl---- Good heavens! but if you dare to bring her name into this
+horrible business, I'll throttle the pair of you! You shan't connect her
+with the abominable affair! By God, you shan't!"
+
+"M'sieur is too quick with his threats," put in Cleek suavely. "Would it
+not be as well to wait? Unfortunately, we have only too much proof that
+a woman was concerned in the murder, and----"
+
+"But it was not Lady Katharine. That I swear!" The young man's voice
+shook with emotion, and his strained eyes gazed from one face to the
+other in heartbreaking intensity.
+
+"You are absolutely sure that you have no suspicion of the murderer's
+identity?" Cleek asked with a sharpness unusual to him. "No reason to
+doubt any living soul?"
+
+For just the merest fraction of a second young Clavering appeared to
+hesitate.
+
+"No," he said curtly. "No, I have not. I know no more about it than a
+child. Mellish told me about the murder, and it was only natural that I
+should come up here to make inquiries."
+
+"But, yes, monsieur, of course," agreed Cleek softly. "There is, then,
+no more to be said save good-bye. I fear me I shall not have the
+pleasure of meeting you again, as I return to Paris to-morrow. The case
+is one of the most mysterious, and I leave it to your English detective,
+Mr. George Headland. So it is adieu, monsieur, and not au revoir."
+
+He held out his hand to the young man, who grasped it in his own
+trembling one, and then, with a sharp "good-night," Geoff Clavering
+turned and strode back in the direction whence he had come.
+
+"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, taking his chin between his thumb and forefinger
+and rubbing it up and down. "A total denial! And with enough decency to
+blush! Quite so! Quite so!"
+
+Mr. Narkom, knowing the signs and being torn with eagerness for the
+father of that rash boy, moved forward and laid a shaking hand upon his
+sleeve.
+
+"Cleek," he said in a whisper full of anxiety and excitement, "don't
+keep it back, dear chap. You've come to some conclusion. Speak up, do,
+and tell me what you make of it?"
+
+"Make of it, Mr. Narkom? Well, for one thing, I make of it that that
+young man lied like a pickpocket and deliberately attempted to throw
+dust in our eyes. He not only _does_ suspect some one--and with good
+grounds, too--but he has been here before and in that house to-night. In
+other words, his was the foot that crushed that golden capsule. The
+scent of the _Huile Violette_ was upon the drawing paper, the measure,
+the muffler, the cap--every blessed thing he trod on in his scuffle with
+Dollops!"
+
+"Good God! Oh, his poor father! Surely, surely, Cleek, you do not
+believe----"
+
+"My dear Mr. Narkom, I never suffer myself to 'believe' anything until I
+have absolute proof of it. What I may _think_ is a different matter."
+
+"And you think of that boy--what?"
+
+"That he is either a hot-headed, quixotic, loyal, lovable young ass, Mr.
+Narkom, or he's a remarkably dangerous and crafty criminal! I'm put to
+it for the moment to decide which. One thing is pretty certain, and that
+is that young Geoffrey Clavering knows more of this crime than he will
+admit, and that the woman he is shielding is Lady Katharine Fordham, who
+was not only on the Common but in Gleer Cottage itself with Master
+Geoffrey."
+
+"Good heavens! Cleek, how do you know that?" cried Mr. Narkom, his voice
+hoarse and shaken.
+
+"Firstly, because his clothes are all scented with that peculiar scent
+of violets, and although I know from the dead keeper that another woman,
+probably Lady Clavering, was on the Common, he is certainly not
+shielding her; otherwise he would not have admitted that she had
+absented herself from her guests. No, I think you will find that both
+the young people were out here to-night. Let's hear now what Dollops has
+to say."
+
+A minute later there sounded the familiar cry of a night owl, which
+brought the boy himself running up at full speed.
+
+"Lor' lumme, sir!" he cried disgustedly, as a quick glance revealed the
+absence of his former prisoner. "You never went and let 'im go after me
+a-showin' of you the footprint wot he'd left on my drorin' paper! It's
+just the same as one of 'em in the lane wot you told me to measure, sir;
+measure 'em off yourself and see. And him a-playin' off innercent and
+actin' like he was a respectable gent as was comin' here unsuspectin'
+and got copped by mistake! He wasn't, the bounder! He was tryin' to
+sneak away, that's wot _he_ was a-doin' of--trying to do a bunk before
+anybody dropped to where he was a-hidin'."
+
+"What's that? Hiding? Did you say hiding?"
+
+"Yes, I did, Mr. Narkom, and I'd a-told you of it at the time, only you
+wouldn't let me open me blessed mouth, but jist shuts me up and orders
+me off prompt. Hidin' in that blessed 'oller tree there--look!" He
+flashed the light of his torch upon a tree which stood about three or
+four yards distant. "In that he was," he went on, "and jist as soon as
+the motor had went and the way was clear, I sees him sneak out and make
+toward the Common; so I ups and does a tiptoe run along this strip o'
+grass, sir, so's me feet wouldn't make no noise, and jist as he starts
+to do a bunk I does a spring, and comes down on his blessed back like a
+'awk on a guinea 'en."
+
+Narkom twitched up his chin and looked at Cleek; and for a moment there
+was silence, a deep significant silence, then Cleek spoke.
+
+"How shall we sum him up by the measure of these things, Mr. Narkom, as
+a hero or as a scoundrel?" he said. "If he is innocent, why was he
+hiding? And if not for a criminal purpose, why did he come to this place
+at all?"
+
+"Heavens above, man, don't ask _me_!" returned Narkom irritably. "It's
+the most infernal riddle I ever encountered. My head's in a positive
+whirl. But look here, old chap. Supposing he did have a hand in the
+murder, how on earth could he have coaxed De Louvisan to this house--a
+man who had cause to dread him, a man whose life he had threatened?"
+
+"Perhaps he didn't, Mr. Narkom; perhaps somebody did the coaxing for
+him. A woman is a clever lure, my friend, and we know that one or two,
+perhaps three---- Oh, well, let it go at that."
+
+A faint sound of an automobile horn sounded its blare through the
+distance and darkness.
+
+"Lennard is coming back with the local authorities. I'd know the hooting
+of that horn among a thousand, Mr. Narkom. And with their coming,
+'Monsieur de Lesparre' returns to his native kit bag. This way,
+Dollops--look sharp! Pick us up at the old railway arch as soon as you
+can, Mr. Narkom. We'll be on the lookout for you. Now then, Dollops, my
+lad, step lively!"
+
+"Right you are, gov'ner. So long, Mr. Narkom. We're off--as the eggs
+said to the cook when she got a whiff of 'em."
+
+"Good-bye for a little time," said Cleek, reaching out and gripping the
+superintendent's hand. "At the arch, remember. It has been child's play
+up to this, Mr. Narkom. Now the real work begins. And unless all signs
+fail, it promises to be the case of my career."
+
+And so, like this, he stepped off into the mist and darkness, and went
+his way--to the beginning of the chase; to the reading of the riddle; to
+those things of Love and Mystery, of Faith and Unfaith, of Sorrow and of
+Joy, whose trail lay under the roof of Wuthering Grange and which walked
+as shadows with Lady Katharine Fordham and Ailsa Lorne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+"COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE"
+
+
+Once the affair had been reported to the local police, news of the
+tragedy spread over the neighbourhood with amazing velocity, and by nine
+o'clock next morning there wasn't a soul within a radius of five miles
+who had not heard of it; by ten the Common and the immediate vicinity of
+Gleer Cottage were literally black with morbid-minded sightseers and
+reporters.
+
+As yet, however, none but the police and the representatives of the
+press had been permitted to cross the threshold of the house or to
+obtain even the merest glimpse of the murdered man. For all that,
+certain facts relative to the position in which the body had been found,
+together with the mysterious marks upon his shirt bosom, had leaked out,
+and as Scotland Yard, as represented by Cleek and Superintendent Narkom,
+had chosen to remain silent for the present relative to such clues as
+had been discovered, this gave room for some fine flights of fancy on
+the part of the representatives of the press.
+
+The special correspondent of the _Evening Planet_ "discovered" that the
+Count was "a well-known Austrian nobleman" who had offended the famous
+Ravaschol group, and was the author of the equally famous "Ninth Clause"
+which had acted so disastrously against it--a circumstance which, the
+_Planet_ claimed, left no shadow of a doubt regarding "the true meaning
+of the mysterious markings upon the shirt bosom of the unfortunate
+gentleman." Whereupon the representative of its bitterest rival, the
+_Morning Star_, as promptly discovered that he was nothing of the sort;
+that he had been "positively identified" as the former keeper of a sort
+of club in Soho much frequented by Russian, German, French, and Italian
+anarchists; and that, on its being discovered by those gentry that he
+had sold to the police of their several countries secrets thus learned,
+he had been obliged to disappear from his regular haunts in order to
+save his skin. And, furthermore, as the address of the house in which
+that club had been maintained, and from which he had carried on his
+system of betrayal, was 63 Essex Row, the explanation of the markings
+was quite clear--to wit: "Four and two make six; one and two make three;
+furthermore, the peculiar formation of the repeated figure 2 is, of
+course, a rude attempt to make it serve for the letter S. as well;
+which, taken in conjunction with the three X's, leaves no room for doubt
+that these markings stand for Number Sixty-three Essex Row and for
+nothing else."
+
+Now as it happened that 63 Essex Row had, at one time in its career,
+been the seat of just such a club and just such a proceeding as the
+_Morning Star_ stated, nothing was left the _Evening Planet_ but
+sneeringly to point out that "the imaginative genius of our esteemed
+contemporary should not let it fail to remember that the man
+Lovetski--to whom it doubtless refers, and whose mysterious vanishment
+some years ago has never been cleared up--had his supporters as well as
+his accusers. It was clearly shown at the time that although he dwelt in
+the house where the 'club' in question held forth, there never was any
+absolute proof that he was himself in any way actually connected with
+it, his vocation being that of a maker of dressing for boots, shoes,
+ladies' bags, and leather goods generally, which dressing he
+manufactured upon the premises."
+
+This statement, being correct, gave the _Morning Star_ a chance to
+clinch its argument yet more forcibly and to prove itself better
+informed than its rival by coming out in its next issue with the
+declaration that "there can no longer be any question relative to the
+identity of the murdered man. That he is, or rather was, the
+long-vanished Ferdinand Lovetski who was formerly identified with the
+club _and_ the boot-dressing industry carried on at 63 Essex Row, is
+established beyond all cavil, since the marks smeared upon his shirt
+bosom are now known to have been made with shoe-blacking of that variety
+which is applied and polished with a cloth, and which has of recent
+years almost entirely superseded the brush-applied variety of our
+fathers' and grandfathers' days!"
+
+Narkom, much impressed thereby, showed these two articles from the
+_Morning Star_ to Cleek.
+
+"An ingenious young man that reporter, Mr. Narkom, and his deductions
+regarding those marks reflect great credit upon him," said the latter.
+"For it is positively certain that whoever he may or may not have been,
+the man certainly was _not_ the Count de Louvisan, for the simple reason
+that there is _no_ 'Count de Louvisan' in the Austrian nobility, the
+title having lapsed some years ago. The theory that the dead man is that
+Ferdinand Lovetski who formerly lived at 63 Essex Row, however, will
+bear looking into. It is well thought out. I should, perhaps, be more
+impressed with the genius of the chap who worked out so likely a
+solution to those mysterious figures if he hadn't made me lose faith in
+his powers of observation by the 'shoe blacking' statement. It is not a
+bad _guess_, in the circumstances--for each would leave marks very
+similar, if one trusted to the eye alone--but I happen to _know_ that
+the figures were _not_ smeared on with shoe-blacking, but with a stick
+of that greasy, highly scented black cosmetic which some actresses use
+for their eyelashes and some men employ to disguise the gray hairs in
+the moustache. You know the kind of stuff I mean. It is always wrapped
+in a brilliant, ruby-coloured tin foil; is to be found in most barbers'
+and hairdressers' establishments, and is very heavily and peculiarly
+perfumed. You will remember that, when I wanted to ascertain if the
+odour of the _Huile Violette_ emanated from the body of the dead man or
+not, I told you he _was_ scented, but _not_ with violets? Very well, the
+scent which was upon him was the peculiar spicy fragrance of that
+particular kind of cosmetic; and I had only to get one whiff of his
+shirt bosom to understand what had been used to make those marks upon
+it."
+
+"My dear Cleek, could you be sure of that?" ventured Narkom. "I know the
+kind of stuff you mean. But few Englishmen use it these days, though I
+remember it was once very popular. It comes in light brown shades for
+fair people, as well as in black for dark ones; and the Count was
+extremely fair, almost flaxen. Could you be positive then that what you
+smelt was not on his hair or moustache? If he had used the light sort it
+would not show, remember."
+
+"My dear Mr. Narkom, have you so poor an opinion of my methods that you
+fancy I would be likely to be slipshod in my examination, and to pass
+over so important a possibility as that? The man had brilliantine on his
+hair and moustache, and the latter had been dressed with curling irons!
+Believe me, when we find who put those marks upon him, we shall find
+some one who is addicted to the use of black cosmetic of the kind which
+I have mentioned."
+
+And afterward, when the rush of events had crowded yet more important
+ones from his mind, Mr. Maverick Narkom remembered those words and set
+that statement down in his diary as another proof of the amazing
+thoroughness and the shrewd far-sightedness of this remarkable man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+AILSA LORNE
+
+
+Mrs. Raynor positively jumped as the premonitory knock trembled on the
+door before Johnston the butler opened it and entered. Ordinarily she
+was but little given to "nerves" and was by no means easily startled,
+but this morning was a decided exception to the rule. And why not? You
+don't get called up out of your bed every morning to learn that a
+gentleman who had been walking about your tulip beds yesterday afternoon
+had been barbarously murdered during the night in a house but a few
+yards away. Nor is it pleasant to face the likelihood of getting your
+name and your residence mentioned in the daily papers in connection with
+a police affair, and to know that before nightfall every groom,
+washerwoman, and chambermaid within a fifty-mile radius will have read
+exactly what the interior of your home is like, exactly what you wore
+when "our representative" called, and will know a good deal more about
+you than you ever knew about yourself.
+
+"Begging pardon, madam, but a gentleman----" began Johnston, but was
+suffered to get no further.
+
+"If it is a reporter I will not see him," interrupted his mistress with
+a decisive wave of the hand. "You know very well that your master and
+Mr. Harry have gone over to the scene of the abominable affair to
+ascertain if there is or is not any likelihood of its being a case of
+mistaken identity; and you ought to know better, Johnston, than to admit
+strangers of any sort during their absence."
+
+"Your pardon, madam, but nobody has called--at least at the door,"
+replied Johnston with grave politeness. "The gentleman in question is
+asking over the telephone to speak with Miss Lorne."
+
+"With me?" exclaimed Ailsa, turning around in the recess of the big bay
+window of the morning room where she had been standing with her arm
+about Lady Katharine Fordham and looking anxiously down the drive which
+led to the Grange gates. "Did you say that somebody was asking over the
+telephone for _me_, Johnston? Thank you! I will answer the call
+directly."
+
+"My dear, do you think that wise? Do you think it discreet?" said Mrs.
+Raynor rather anxiously. "Consider what risks you run. It may be a
+reporter--I am told that they are up to all sorts of tricks--and to be
+trapped into giving an interview in spite of one's self---- Dearest, you
+must not let yourself be dragged into this abominable affair."
+
+"I think it will be a clever man who can do that against my will--and
+over the telephone," replied Ailsa gayly. "I shan't be gone more than a
+minute or two, Kathie dear; and while I'm away, you might get your hat
+and be ready for a stroll in the grounds when I come back. And you, too,
+Mrs. Raynor, if you will. The weather is glorious, and one might as well
+spend the time waiting for the General's and Mr. Harry's return in the
+open air as cooped up here at half-past nine o'clock on a brilliant
+April morning."
+
+"My dear, you are wonderful, positively wonderful," said Mrs. Raynor
+admiringly. "How _do_ you maintain your composure under such trying
+circumstances? Look at Katharine and me--both of us shaking like the
+proverbial aspen leaf and looking as washed out as though neither of us
+had slept a wink all night; and you as fresh and serene as the morning
+itself. No, I don't think I will go out, thank you. There may be people
+with cameras you know; and to be snapshotted for the edification of the
+readers of some abominable halfpenny paper----"
+
+Ailsa did not wait to hear the conclusion of the remark, but slipped
+out, went hastily to the library and the telephone, and lost not a
+moment in making her presence known to the caller at the other end of
+the line. She had barely spoken three words into the receiver, however,
+when she gave a little start, eyes and lips were involved in a radiant
+smile, and her face became all red and warm with sudden blushes.
+
+"Yes, yes, of course I recognize your voice!" she said in answer to a
+query unheard by any ears but hers. "How wonderful you are! You find out
+everything. I had meant to write and tell you, but we came up so
+unexpectedly and---- What! Yes, I can hear you very distinctly. Pardon?
+Yes. I am listening." Then letting her voice drop off into silence she
+stood very, very still, with ever-widening eyes, lips parted, and a look
+of great seriousness steadily settling down over her paling countenance.
+
+She had said that she would be absent for but a minute or two; it was
+five or six, however, before she came back, to find Lady Katharine and
+Mrs. Raynor just as she had left them.
+
+"No, it wasn't a reporter," she said gayly in response to Mrs. Raynor's
+inquiring look. "It was a dear old friend"--blushing rosily--"a Mr.
+Philip Barch, whom I first met through my uncle, Sir Horace Wyvern, in
+the days before his second marriage. Mr. Barch has asked if he may be
+permitted to call this morning, and I have taken the liberty of saying
+that he may."
+
+"Take a further one, dear, and ask him to stop to luncheon when he
+comes," said Mrs. Raynor. "When a girl blushes like that over the mere
+mentioning of a man's name---- Oh, well, I wasn't always fifty-two, my
+dear, and I flatter myself that I know the duties of a hostess."
+
+Miss Lorne's only response was another and a yet more radiant blush and
+an immediate return to the side of the slim, dark girl standing in the
+recess of the window.
+
+"Kathie, you are positively lazy," she said. "You haven't budged an inch
+since I left, and I distinctly asked you to get your hat."
+
+"I know it," admitted Lady Katharine. "But, Ailsa, dear, I simply
+couldn't. I am afraid Uncle John and Harry may return, and you know how
+anxious I am."
+
+"Still, Kathie, staying in will make no difference," said Ailsa gently,
+"and you will soon know when they arrive."
+
+Reluctantly Lady Katharine let herself be piloted through the open
+French windows and out into the grounds, ablaze with flowers.
+
+"I should think Geoffrey would be here, too," said Ailsa, with a swift
+glance at her companion's pale face. "He must have heard the news by
+this time, but something has evidently delayed him."
+
+A wave of scarlet surged into Lady Katharine's face.
+
+"Oh, if only he would!" she muttered. "I am so tired----"
+
+"I daresay, dear," said Ailsa sympathetically. "You did not sleep well,
+darling, did you?"
+
+"Yes, but I did--that's just the strange thing," said Lady Katharine
+quickly. "What made you think not, Ailsa?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, I thought I heard your door open and shut in the
+night. I came within an ace of getting up to see whether you were ill,
+but fell asleep again myself."
+
+Her companion looked puzzled. "It must have been a mistake on your part,
+Ailsa. I fell asleep almost directly my head touched the pillow, and
+slept like a log until morning. But don't let's talk about last night."
+She turned impulsively to Ailsa, her voice thrilling with emotion. "It's
+no use," she said. "I simply can't feel sorry over it. I know I ought.
+Death is always horrible, and such a death!" She shuddered
+involuntarily. "But you don't know what a release it is to me. If this
+had not happened, I think I should have died----"
+
+Ailsa pressed her arm in silent sympathy, but before she could speak
+Mrs. Raynor appeared on the scene. She had guarded herself against
+attacks of possible snapshotters by carrying an open parasol, and Ailsa
+was glad to change the topic of conversation.
+
+It was some twenty minutes later, when they were still strolling in the
+gardens, that a taxicab halted at the lodge gates, and they saw a tall,
+slim figure arrayed in an exceedingly well-cut morning suit, with a rose
+in his buttonhole and shiny top hat on his closely cropped fair head,
+advancing up the drive toward them with that easy grace and perfect
+poise which mutely stands sponsor for the thing called breeding.
+
+"My dears!" began Mrs. Raynor admiringly, "what a distinguished looking
+man!" She had time to say no more, for Ailsa, with a face like a rose,
+had gone to meet the newcomer--who quickened his steps at sight of her
+and was now well within earshot--and was greeting him as a woman greets
+but one man ever.
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Raynor to Lady Katharine, in a carefully lowered
+tone, "if I know anything, you will be parting with that dear girl's
+companionship for good and all before the summer is over. Look at the
+man's eyes: they are positively devouring her. Of course we shall have
+to remain to welcome him, but I think we shall earn their gratitude if
+we leave them to themselves as soon as we decently can."
+
+A few minutes later the opportunity to do this was offered her; and
+having lingered just long enough to be introduced to "Mr. Philip Barch"
+and to become even more impressed with him at close quarters as not only
+a man good to look at, but as an apt and easy conversationalist, she
+suddenly remembered that she and Lady Katharine had promised to gather
+some hyacinths for the lunch table, and forthwith spirited her away.
+
+Cleek followed her with his eyes as long as she remained in sight, then
+he turned to Ailsa. "A very tender and sensitive girl I should say, Miss
+Lorne, although she bears herself so well under the cross of last
+night's tragedy. I see by your manner of looking at her that you are
+attached to her in many ways."
+
+"Not in many, but in all, Mr. Cleek. She is the dearest girl in the
+world."
+
+"We won't go into that, otherwise we should disagree for the first time
+in the whole course of our acquaintance. Let me thank you for adhering
+so closely to all that I asked over the telephone. I didn't mean to, at
+first. My original idea was to come here unknown to all, even to you;
+but when I came to think over it, it seemed so disloyal, so
+underhanded, as if I didn't trust you in all things, _always_--that I
+simply couldn't bring myself to do it."
+
+She looked up at him with grave sweet eyes--the eyes that had lit him
+back from the path to destruction, that would light him up to the gates
+of heaven evermore--and smiled on him, bewildered.
+
+"I am afraid I do not follow you," she said. "I don't quite grasp what
+you mean. Oh!" with sudden fear, "if you thought from my cry of surprise
+when I recognized your voice over the telephone, that I was not glad----
+Why, I was going to write to you this morning. But I expected it to be
+Geoffrey Clavering asking for Kathie, you know----"
+
+The name brought a ridge between Cleek's brows as of a sudden
+disconcerting thought.
+
+"Geoffrey Clavering? But he has been over here, this morning, has he
+not?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"No, he has not, and that is what seems so strange," said Ailsa.
+
+"Did he write no note to Lady Katharine then--send her no message, Miss
+Lorne?"
+
+"No. I see that surprises you, Mr. Cleek, as, to be perfectly frank with
+you, it surprises me. I can't make it out. I know that his whole life is
+bound up in Kathie, as hers is bound up in him. I know that it nearly
+drove him frantic when he was told their engagement would have to come
+to an end; so one would naturally think that when there is a rumour that
+the man who came between them is dead----And he _must_ have heard by
+this time."
+
+"Miss Lorne, let me tell you something," said Cleek gravely. "Geoffrey
+Clavering does know of the murder. He has known of it since twelve
+o'clock last night, to my certain knowledge."
+
+"Mr. Cleek! And yet he has made no move to communicate with Lady
+Katharine! But"--with sudden hopefulness--"perhaps he wishes to make
+absolutely sure; perhaps the identity of the murdered man is not yet
+wholly established! Perhaps it is not really the Count de Louvisan after
+all."
+
+"It _is_ the Count de Louvisan, Miss Lorne! That was settled beyond all
+question last night."
+
+"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then?"
+
+"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then--yes! The man slain is, or rather
+was, the one known as the Count de Louvisan; on his dead body numbers
+whose total make up the sum of nine were marked; and--I fancy you
+remember what Geoffrey Clavering threatened when the fellow went to
+Clavering Close last night."
+
+Ailsa looked at him, her eyes dilating, the colour draining slowly out
+of her cheeks and lips. It was impossible not to grasp the significance
+of these two circumstances, one of which--the mysterious markings on the
+dead man's body--she now heard of for the first time.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Cleek, oh!" she said faintly. "You surely can't think---- A
+dear lovable boy like that! You can't believe that Geoffrey Clavering
+had anything to do with it?"
+
+"I hope not, for, frankly, I like the boy. But one thing is certain: if
+_he_ didn't kill the man, he knows who did; knows, too, that there is a
+woman implicated in the crime."
+
+"A woman! Oh, Mr. Cleek, a--a woman?"
+
+"Yes--perhaps two women!"
+
+"Women and--and a deed of violence, a deed of horror, like that? No!
+Women couldn't. They would be fiends, not women. I hold too high an
+estimate of my sex to let you call them that! And for him, for Geoffrey
+Clavering, there is but one woman in all the world! Even you shan't hint
+it of _her_! No, not even you."
+
+"Hush! I am hinting nothing. Now that I have seen Lady Katharine I would
+almost as soon think evil of you as of her."
+
+There was a little summerhouse close at hand. He saw that she was faint,
+shocked, overcome, and gently led her to it, loathing himself that even
+for one moment he had brought pain within touch of her.
+
+"Who knows better than I how false appearances may be?" he said. "Who
+should be less likely to take suspicious circumstances for proof?"
+
+"Oh, but to suspect, even to _suspect_, Kathie--the dearest and the
+sweetest girl on earth."
+
+"Again I dispute that!" he threw back with repressed vehemence. "And
+again I declare that I am not swayed by facts, black as they may be,
+black as they undoubtedly are. If I believed, should I come here and
+openly tell you of these things? My duty is to the law. Should I not
+carry proofs there if I believed that they were proofs? But my faith is
+as a rock. Shall I prove it to you? Then look! I know that you will tell
+me the truth; and it is because of that, because in my heart I know it
+is a truth which you can and will face openly and with no cause for
+fear, that I have declined to hold this thing of sufficient importance
+to be called a clue, and as such to be handed over to the police. Miss
+Lorne--Ailsa--tell me, will you--have you ever seen this thing before?"
+
+While he was speaking his hand had gone to his pocket and come forth
+tightly shut. Now he opened his closed fingers and let her see that
+there was a scrap of pink chiffon edged with rose coloured stitchery
+lying on his open palm. Her eyes, fixed earnestly upon his face
+heretofore, dropped to the gauzy fragment held out to her, and a ridge
+dug itself between her level brows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+BLIND GROPING
+
+
+Ailsa Lorne gave a little start as she examined the fragment.
+
+"I thought at first that it was torn from my own dress," she said
+frankly, looking up at him, "for, as it happens, I was wearing a pink
+dress, but not quite of this shade. I will show it to you if you like."
+
+"There is no need, Miss Lorne," said Cleek, his eyes shining. "If you
+tell me that you were not at Gleer Cottage last night, then there is no
+more to be said," and with a little laugh of sheer happiness he
+carefully replaced the bit of chiffon in his pocketbook. "Just one more
+question, please, Miss Lorne. Tell me: has Lady Katharine a certain kind
+of bracelet to which there is attached a small capsule by a link of
+gold, and which smells adorably of violets?"
+
+"Yes. Anybody that knows her could tell you that. Her father, Lord St.
+Ulmer, brought it to her from South America. He had her name and the St.
+Ulmer arms engraved upon it. At least, upon what you have called the
+'capsule,' which contains some highly concentrated perfume that makes
+the whole room fragrant whenever she removes a tiny gold stopper from
+the delightful thing."
+
+"Thank you! I supposed as much. Now will you tell me, Miss Lorne, how
+long it is since Lady Katharine lost that little golden capsule from her
+bracelet? Was it, as I am hoping, on the day when you visited Gleer
+Cottage in company with her, or since?"
+
+"What a strange question. She hasn't lost it at all. At least, she has
+made no mention of having done so, as I am sure she would if it _had_
+been lost. Always, of course, providing it wasn't lost without her
+knowledge. At any rate, she wore it last night when we went to Clavering
+Close. I know that, because I remarked at the time that she had better
+let a jeweller look at it, as the ring of the scent globe was very
+nearly worn through."
+
+"Was that before you left the Grange or after?"
+
+"After--a long while after--at Clavering Close; in fact, while we were
+taking off our wraps preparatory to going down to the drawing-room."
+
+"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, puckering up his lips and looking grave. "You are
+establishing a very unpleasant fact by that statement. It proves that,
+in spite of your belief to the contrary, Lady Katharine revisited Gleer
+Cottage last night, and that, too, _after_ the affair at Clavering
+Close."
+
+"How perfectly absurd! Why, she wasn't out of my sight for a single
+instant."
+
+"Nevertheless, she certainly visited Gleer Cottage last night," repeated
+Cleek with calm persistence. "I know that beyond all possible doubt,
+Miss Lorne; for I myself found the capsule of that bracelet there,
+crushed and broken, but still showing that the St. Ulmer arms and the
+name 'Katharine' had been engraved upon it. Don't look at me like that,
+please, or you will make me hate myself for having to tell you this."
+
+"But I tell you it is impossible," she still protested. "I tell you she
+was never out of my sight for one instant from the time we left this
+house to the time we returned. No, not for one, Mr. Cleek, up to the
+very moment she left me to go to bed."
+
+"Just so. But after that?"
+
+"After that? After----" she began; and then stopped, and grew very pale
+and very, very still, for there had come to her a recollection of that
+moment when, as she had said, she fancied she heard Lady Katharine's
+door open and shut in the night when all the house was still.
+
+"And after that?" repeated Cleek, driving the question home.
+
+"How should I know?" she gave back, in something akin to panic. "How
+could I? We do not sleep together. But"--with sudden brightening--"this
+I do know, however: the bracelet was still on her wrist and the scent
+globe still attached to it, even then. I saw it with my own eyes."
+
+"A clear proof that, as the capsule was dropped after that time, she
+left the house last night without your knowledge, Miss Lorne."
+
+"I can't believe it; I will not believe it!" protested Ailsa loyally. "I
+know that she did not! I _know_!"
+
+"How?"
+
+"It is likely that you have not heard it, but Katharine is an
+accomplished violoncellist, Mr. Cleek. She loves her instrument, and in
+times of sorrow or distress she flies to it for comfort, and plays and
+plays until her nerves are soothed. Last night, after she left me, I
+heard her playing in her room."
+
+"For long?"
+
+"No. Of a sudden something went snap and the music ceased. She opened
+her door and called across the passage to me: 'Ailsa, pray for me. I am
+so wretched, so abandoned by fortune, that even the solace of my 'cello
+is denied me. I have broken the A-string and have not another in the
+house. Good-night, dear. I wish I could break the String of Life as
+easily!' After that she closed and locked the door, and I heard her go
+to bed."
+
+_The A-string!_
+
+Cleek turned away his head and took his chin between his thumb and
+forefinger. _The A-string!_ And it was with a noose of catgut that the
+Count de Louvisan had been strangled!
+
+"I'll not believe that she left the house," went on Miss Lorne. "She is
+the soul of honour, the very embodiment of truth, and she told me
+herself that she 'slept like a log until morning.' If she had gone out
+after I left her, after I fell asleep----"
+
+"It could be proved and proved easily," interposed Cleek. "The night was
+moist and foggy, the roads were wet and muddy. Her clothes, the hem of
+her skirt, the state of her shoes---- But I will not ask you to play
+the spy upon your friend, Miss Lorne."
+
+"Nor would I do it!" she flashed back spiritedly; then stopped and gave
+a little excited exclamation and laid a shaking hand upon Cleek's
+sleeve. An automobile had swung suddenly into view in the drive leading
+up from the gates to the house, and in it were two men: one white of
+hair and snowy of beard but as erect as a statue; the other slim and
+young and fashionably dressed, and so clearly of the order "Johnnie"
+that he who ran might read. The General and his son had returned from
+their visit to Gleer Cottage.
+
+Miss Lorne made that fact clear to Cleek in a few words.
+
+"Now we shall have the full account of everything in Harry Raynor's
+original and detestable style," she whispered. "You are so shrewd in
+guessing riddles, Mr. Cleek, tell me, if you can, why it is that lions
+so often breed asses, and that heroes so often father clowns? If you
+were to search the world you could find no truer gentleman, in speech,
+in manner, in instincts, in everything, than dear old General Raynor;
+and yet, if you were to search it thrice over, you could find no greater
+cad than his son."
+
+"From what I can see at this distance he certainly does look like a fine
+example of the genus bounder, I must confess," said Cleek. "You do not
+appear to have much of an opinion of the young man, Miss Lorne."
+
+"I have not. I detest him! I never did care for 'scented' men; and when
+they come down to the 'curling iron' and the 'dye stick' they are simply
+abominable!"
+
+"The 'dye stick'?"
+
+"Yes. You mustn't be deceived by that waxed and delicately darkened
+moustache of Mr. Harry Raynor's, Mr. Cleek. It would be as sandy as his
+hair if the wretched little dandy didn't darken it with black cosmetic
+because he is ashamed of the cow colour which nature so appropriately
+bestowed upon it."
+
+Cleek screwed round on his heel and looked at Mr. Harry Raynor with
+renewed interest.
+
+"I suppose I ought not to have said that," she continued, "but I do
+detest him so. I think I had better run and tell Kathie that they have
+come back, but I will not keep you waiting many minutes." She smiled
+brightly at Cleek, and with a little nod ran lightly off, leaving him to
+await her return.
+
+But, despite his interest in Mr. Harry Raynor, Cleek dropped discreetly
+out of sight and into one of the many winding paths with which the
+grounds abounded. A few minutes' gentle stroll along this particular one
+brought him to the rear of the house, and before he quite realized it he
+found himself within the precincts of the stable. The yard itself was
+deserted save for a single groom who was evidently hard at work
+polishing a boot, and which, judging from the muddy appearance of its
+companion, must have proved no easy task.
+
+Cleek gave one look at the expensively cut article of footgear, then he
+lounged across the yard.
+
+"That's a pretty tough job, isn't it?" said he offhandedly. The groom
+looked up, but meeting the visitor's disarming smile, only gave vent to
+a grunt.
+
+"Should think it is a tough job," he muttered. "They're his lordship's
+boots, an' 'ow 'e comes to make 'em in such a state beats me to fits.
+Fair caked with mud, and 'im in bed with a sprained ankle. It's that
+valet of 'is, I s'pose----" He broke off, then looked questioningly at
+Cleek.
+
+"I've lost my way," he said, plunging his hand into his pocket. "I
+strolled down a path from the lawns in front of the house. Which one
+will take me back?"
+
+"First path to the right, sir, and thank you," said the gratified groom,
+and a minute later found Cleek back at the spot where Ailsa had left
+him.
+
+He certainly had to admit that the whole affair was most perplexing, and
+he was still pondering over the various points of the case when Ailsa
+Lorne returned, and for a few moments they paced the lawn in silence;
+then Cleek turned with a little smile.
+
+"I suppose we shall have to go and meet the General," said he serenely.
+"Shall we meet Lady Katharine's father as well?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no! The man's in bed with a sprained ankle. Can't put his
+foot to the ground."
+
+"Oh! Indeed? Then that explains it, of course. I wondered."
+
+"Explains it? Explains what?"
+
+"Why, his not being about at such a time--not appearing to take any
+interest in his daughter's affairs, especially her deliverance from a
+loveless marriage. It struck me as curious when I saw her. But I set it
+down to the possibility of there being bad blood between them. Is
+there?"
+
+"No, there is not," said Ailsa, falling unconsciously into the trap.
+"Kathie is not the kind of girl to hold a grudge against any one, Mr.
+Cleek. She is intensely emotional, but she is also intensely loyal. The
+very last person in the world she would be likely to treat spitefully
+would be her father."
+
+"I see. She is fond of him, then? Probably I have heard the wrong
+version of the story. Have I? I was told that it was he who compelled
+her, very much against her will, to accept the attentions of
+the--er--Count de Louvisan and to become engaged to him. That she begged
+her father to save her from marrying the man, but he would not--or could
+not--consent."
+
+"That is quite true. You have not been misinformed. She did just what
+you have been told. Indeed, I happen to know that she even went so far
+as to get down on her knees to Lord St. Ulmer and implore him to kill
+her rather than to compel her to give up Geoff--and especially for a man
+she loathed as she did the Count de Louvisan. It was useless, however.
+That same night Lord St. Ulmer asked her to come to him alone in the
+library at Ulmer Court. They were together for two hours. The next day
+she accepted the Count de Louvisan."
+
+"I see!" said Cleek. "Of course, his lordship told her something which
+influenced her beyond her own will and desires. Do you happen to know
+what that something was?"
+
+"No. She has never told me one word beyond that she went into that
+library with a breaking heart, and came out of it with a broken one."
+
+"And in spite of all that, she still loves this father who compelled her
+to give up all that life held, eh?"
+
+"I didn't say that. I said that she was loyal to him, not that she loved
+him. How could she love a father whom she had not seen since she was a
+baby--whom she did not even know when he came back to claim her? Why,
+she hadn't even a picture to tell her what he looked like, and in all
+the years he was away he never wrote her so much as one line. A girl
+couldn't love a father like that. She might like him, she might be
+grateful to him, as Katharine is, for loading her with all the things
+that money can buy; but to love him---- What is the matter, Mr. Cleek?
+What in the world made you say 'Phew' like that?"
+
+"Nothing! Do you happen to know if the late Count de Louvisan was ever
+in Argentina, Miss Lorne?"
+
+"No, I do not. Why?"
+
+"Oh, mere idle curiosity, that's all. Turned up suddenly at Ulmer Court,
+didn't he? Any idea from where?"
+
+"Not the slightest. He called quite unexpectedly one evening after we
+all--Kathie, his lordship, and I--had been over to the autumn races at
+Fourfields. That was an unfortunate day altogether. We did not see the
+conclusion of even the first race. Lord St. Ulmer was suddenly taken
+ill, although he had been quite well a moment before, and was so bad
+that we had to leave immediately. Nothing would do him but that we must
+drive home as quickly as possible, so that he could consult our local
+doctor."
+
+Cleek glanced at her swiftly. "Hum-m-m! Bad as that, was he?" he asked.
+"What did the local doctor think caused the illness? Or did his lordship
+recover on the way home, and find it unnecessary to call him in at all?
+Ah, he did, eh? Queer things those sudden attacks; you never know when
+they will come on or when they will go off again. Possibly his present
+illness came just as suddenly. Did it?"
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure," replied Miss Lorne. "I wasn't there when it
+happened. Nobody was. Kathie and I had just gone into the refreshment
+room at the railway station for tea-- Lord St. Ulmer said he didn't care
+for any, and would just step round to the news stall and get an
+afternoon paper--and when we came out there he was, poor man, sitting on
+a seat and groaning. He stepped on a banana peel, he said, and turned
+his ankle. A few minutes later Count de Louvisan put in an appearance.
+He had arranged to join us at Liverpool Street Station, and, no doubt,
+would have done so, but at the last minute Lord St. Ulmer had made up
+his mind to journey up to town by an earlier train than originally
+arranged. Anyway, his lordship made him go and wire to General Raynor
+that he was afraid our visit would have to be postponed indefinitely, as
+he had met with an accident and was going direct to the Savoy Hotel. Of
+course the General came with his motor, and wouldn't listen to his
+stopping there; so we all came on, as agreed, to Wuthering Grange. That
+was the day before yesterday, and Lord St. Ulmer has been in bed ever
+since."
+
+"Very neat, very neat indeed," commented Cleek. "Couldn't tell me, I
+suppose, where I might get a peep at-- I--er--mean who is the doctor
+attending to him?"
+
+"He hasn't a doctor. He wouldn't have one. He is a very obstinate man,
+Mr. Cleek, and simply would not allow General Raynor to call in the
+local practitioner. Claims that he brought some wonderful ointment with
+him from Argentina which, as he phrases it, 'beats all the doctors
+hollow in the matter of sprains and bruises'; and simply will not allow
+anybody to do anything for him."
+
+Cleek puckered up his brows. Obviously it would be useless to represent
+himself as an assistant to the local doctor, or even to make himself up
+to pass muster for that doctor himself, for the purpose of examining a
+man who would not see any medical man upon any pretext whatsoever. And
+yet---- He gave a little toss of his shoulders, as if to throw away
+these fresh ideas, and came back again to Lady Katharine. What other
+proof could he secure? Why had she played the 'cello at all at such a
+time? Was it to secure that very string? Was it but a cloak to hide her
+designs? A swift idea flashed across his mind, as he recalled Lennard's
+story of a lady in an ermine cloak. He turned suddenly to his companion.
+
+"Miss Lorne," he asked, "did Lady Katharine bring her ermine cloak with
+her when she came up from Suffolk?"
+
+"No," said Ailsa in reply. "And for the very best of reasons: she hasn't
+one."
+
+"Oh, I see. Know anybody who has?"
+
+"Yes, I have. Lady Chepstowe gave me hers when she went to India. Why?"
+
+"Oh, just a fancy of mine, that's all," replied Cleek with apparent
+offhandedness. "I seem to fancy that I heard something about Lady
+Katharine having had her portrait painted wearing a very superb ermine
+cloak. But, of course, if she hasn't one--or--yes, she might have
+borrowed yours. You'd lend it to her, I know--lend it like a shot. Did
+you?"
+
+"I certainly did not. For one thing, she never in her life asked me to;
+and for another, whoever told you that tale about her having her
+portrait painted wearing one must be blessed with a very remarkable
+imagination. She had no such portrait painted. And I never lent her the
+cloak for any purpose at any time."
+
+"I see. Couldn't have left it lying about where anybody might pick it
+up, could you?"
+
+"How like a man that is," she said gayly. "Fancy a girl, especially one
+in my position, being possessed of so valuable a thing as an ermine
+cloak, and then leaving it about like a fan or a garden hat! No, I did
+not leave it about. Indeed, I couldn't if I had wanted to."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For the very good reason that I sent it to the furrier's to have it
+made into a muff and stole."
+
+"May I ask when? Recently?"
+
+"No; quite two months ago. They are storing it for me, and will make the
+alterations in time for next winter's wear. As a cloak, of course, it is
+quite useless to a girl in my position. But really, I must go now.
+Kathie will think it very heartless of us if we do not fly to hear the
+General's report. Wait for me here, please. I shall be back directly."
+
+Then she hurried out of the summerhouse and taking a path which led
+round to the rear of the Grange, passed from sight and left Cleek to his
+own devices.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+ANOTHER STRAND IN THE WEB
+
+
+The arrival of Mrs. Raynor and the General upon the scene, with Harry
+Raynor in their wake, gave a different atmosphere, so to speak, to
+Cleek's thoughts, and he threw himself, heart and soul, into getting
+into the good graces of the family. He did not much fancy Mr. Harry
+Raynor, who was too self-assertive to be pleasant company to a matured
+man of the world, and just at the age which may be best described in the
+quotation, "young enough to know everything."
+
+Nevertheless, he had made up his mind to secure an invitation to stay
+overnight at Wuthering Grange, in order that he might have a peep at
+Lord St. Ulmer, and he knew that it was only by making himself a boon
+companion of the young man that he could hope to secure it. About three
+and twenty, the idol of an adoring mother, if not of his father, that
+gentleman was of the type that favour the ladies of the ballet with
+their attentions, and prefer chorus girls, stage doors, and late suppers
+to home amusements and the like; and it was not long before Cleek had
+him nicely "managed" and in the desired frame of mind.
+
+A casual remark about a certain dashing musical-comedy actress who had
+sprung into sudden prominence set the ball rolling; then Cleek expressed
+in confidence a burning desire to know the lady and deep disappointment
+over the fact that he knew no one who was in a position to introduce
+him; and in ten minutes' time he had his fish hooked.
+
+"I say, you know, I'll give you an introduction to her like a shot, old
+chap, if you really do want to know her," young Raynor imparted to him
+in deep confidence as he led him outside and got him away from the
+ladies. "Know her like a book! Rippin' sort! Introduce you any time you
+like. My hat! yes!"
+
+"Really?" said Cleek with every appearance of boundless delight. "You
+know her--you actually know her?"
+
+"Yes, rather! Know the whole blessed shoot of 'em from Flossie
+Twinkletoes down. Get reams of letters from 'em and bushels of
+photos--all autographed. I say, come up to my den and have a peep. You
+never saw such a gallery!"
+
+Cleek admitted to himself when he saw them that he never had, for the
+room was literally smothered under photographs of actresses, gymnasts,
+ladies of the music-hall persuasion, and public characters in general.
+
+"Always sport my oak, you know," said the young man with a laugh and a
+wink, as he locked the door behind him. "Pater might see 'em, and then
+there would be a time of it. Awful old muff, the pater; good sort, you
+know, but he'd have this lot in the fire in less than no time if he
+knew. Fearful old fossil. Flowers, fruits, rubber at whist, pipe, and an
+old army friend--that's his idea of life."
+
+Cleek felt like taking him by the back of the neck and kicking him. He
+didn't, however. He had other fish to fry; and he succeeded so well that
+before he left that room he had an invitation to stop the night, and as
+he had brought no evening clothes with him, the offer of a suit to meet
+the emergency.
+
+"Look here, I'll tell you what, Barch," said Raynor when this invitation
+and this offer were accepted, turning round as he spoke--he was at a
+window which overlooked the drive up from the gates of the Grange "chaps
+like us don't want to sit in a drawing-room and waste time with a pair
+of prunes and prisms like Lady Katharine Fordham and that prig of a
+Lorne girl. If you're in for a lark, we'll slip out and I'll show you a
+bit of life on the sly. I like you-- I'm blest if I don't; so if you're
+game for a kick up, I'll let you into a secret and give you the time of
+your life. Now, then, listen here, old chap."
+
+He stopped abruptly as a sudden grating sound of wheels rose from the
+drive, and looking down, he saw that a vehicle had swung in through the
+gates and was advancing toward the house.
+
+"Oh Lord! that settles it; now we're in for a visitation!" he said with
+an expression of deep disgust. "There's that prig of a chap, Geoff
+Clavering, driving in. Can't stick that fellow at any price!"
+
+Geoff Clavering! Cleek rose as he heard the name, walked to the window,
+and looked out. So, then, he had not been so far out in his reckoning
+after all. Geoff Clavering had come at last to seek an interview with
+the girl of his heart.
+
+Why the boy had delayed until now Cleek could not guess, unless it was
+because of a shrinking dread of going abroad anywhere at such a time;
+but that he had nerved himself to come at last for something more than a
+mere call was apparent at first glance; for his face was white and
+strained, and it was evident, even from this distance, that he was
+labouring under strong excitement.
+
+Undoubtedly there would be, as he had surmised, a private interview
+arranged between those two people, and undoubtedly he must manage to
+overhear it. What a pity that this should have happened at this
+particular time, that young Clavering should have arrived while he was
+up here, out of the way of seeing what happened when Geoff and Lady
+Katharine first met!
+
+A glance, a movement, a hundred different things, might tell him what he
+wanted to know if he were there at that moment of first meeting. But
+perhaps it was not yet too late. The carriage hadn't reached the
+entrance of the house as yet; perhaps, if he hurried, if he went at
+once----
+
+"I say, let's go down, Raynor," he said desperately. "I don't know
+what's come over me, but my head's suddenly begun to swim, and I'm
+afraid I shall keel over if I don't get out in the air. We can let the
+lark you were speaking of rest until afterward. Come on, will you? By
+Jove! you know, I'm in a fearful way."
+
+And from the effort to carry out the impression of extreme giddiness a
+curious thing came:
+
+Clapping his hand to his head, and wheeling staggeringly round to make
+his way to the door, he had the good or ill fortune to blunder against a
+little table, upon which stood what was undoubtedly an earthenware
+tobacco jar, and to send it crashing to the ground. Instantly and out of
+it there rolled, on top of the quantity of spilled tobacco which had
+originally been used to cover it, a little silver box, which flew open
+as it fell and disgorged a photograph, a couple of letters in a woman's
+hand, and a fragment of pink gauze.
+
+Cleek had just stooped to pick these things up and to lay them back upon
+the table, when a yet more curious thing happened.
+
+"I say! You let those things alone!" snapped young Raynor excitedly; and
+springing forward, whisked them out of his hand. But not before Cleek
+had made a rather startling discovery: the letters were written in a
+woman's hand--a hand he recognized the instant he saw it--and the
+picture which accompanied them was a photograph of Margot. He had no
+longer a desire to hurry downstairs.
+
+The rudeness of his act and of his manner of speaking seemed to dawn
+upon young Raynor almost as he snatched the photograph and letters, and
+he hastened to apologize.
+
+"I say, don't think me stable-bred, Barch," he said, a flush of
+mortification reddening his face. "Didn't mean to rip out at you like
+that, b'gad! Fact is, I was a bit excited; forgot for a moment that
+you're a pal. So don't get your back up, please."
+
+"I haven't the slightest intention of doing so, dear chap," replied
+Cleek, who, it must be confessed, was a little shaken by the discovery.
+"Every man has a right to cut up a bit rough when he thinks some other
+fellow is going to pry into his secrets. And I reckon this is one of
+your pet mashes--eh, what?"
+
+"Yes, something like that. The latest--and a ripper. French, you know.
+That's what rattled me for the moment. The dad loathes French women. I'm
+extra careful to keep this one's picture out of sight. I say! Don't know
+what you'll think about my manners, but I forgot all about your asking
+to go down and get out into the air. Sorry, old chap! Come along! Take
+my arm, and I'll help you."
+
+As the breaking of the tobacco jar had deprived Raynor of again making
+use of that as a means of hiding the little silver box and its contents,
+he had, while speaking, crammed the letters, the photograph, and the
+scrap of pink gauze into an inside pocket of his coat, and now came
+forward and took Cleek's arm with the amiable intention of leading him
+from the room.
+
+There was, of course, in the circumstances nothing for it but to go,
+much as Cleek would have preferred to stop and trace the connection
+between young Raynor and Margot; but he was far too careful in his
+methods to cast any doubt regarding the genuineness of that sudden
+attack of a moment before by pretending that it had begun to abate, and
+therefore yielded himself to the inevitable.
+
+But he had this consolation in doing it: not only would he now be
+enabled to witness the meeting between Geoff Clavering and Lady
+Katharine Fordham after all, but as a man who is ill is always more or
+less an object of sympathy and attention upon the part of women, he
+foresaw that he might induce Lady Katharine to hover round him, and thus
+bring Geoff Clavering within close range for easy and careful studying.
+Nor did he fear that he had lost all opportunity for pursuing the
+subject of Harry Raynor's acquaintance with Margot. The mere fact that
+that young man had the contents of the little silver box upon his person
+might easily cause an apprehensive inquiry regarding the risk of
+carrying them about where they might be dropped, and so brought to his
+father's attention; and from that inquiry it would be simple work
+getting back to the subject itself without exciting any suspicion
+regarding his keen interest in it. He therefore allowed young Raynor to
+lead him from the room.
+
+"Fearfully groggy, old chap, fearfully," he said in answer to young
+Raynor's inquiry regarding how he felt as they went down the dim passage
+toward the staircase; "head going round like a teetotum; hope I don't
+keel over and spoil the evening's sport by having to be put to bed like
+a kid. Don't want two sick men on one floor, do you, eh? Or is it on
+this floor that Lord St. Ulmer's room is situated?"
+
+"Yes, that one over there--second door from the wing staircase. Speak
+low, old chap, or you may disturb him. Sleeps like a cat, they say--one
+eye and both ears always open. Doesn't do anything but sleep, I imagine,
+day and night, from the way he keeps to his room. Hullo! I say! What's
+it? Aren't going to crumple up, Barch, are you?"
+
+This, because Cleek had suddenly lurched against the bannister at the
+head of the stairs, and swung clean round until his back was resting
+against it.
+
+"No--that is, I hope not; but I do feel rotten, old chap," replied he.
+"Just half a second, will you?"
+
+He lolled back his head, gave a sort of groan, and rapidly and silently
+began to count the doors and to make sure of the location of Lord St.
+Ulmer's room. "All right; only a passing spasm, I reckon, old chap," he
+went on as soon as he had discovered that his lordship's door was the
+third from the end of the passage, and that his window would, therefore,
+be the second from the angle of the wing in the outer wall of the house.
+"Come on--let's go down." And leaning heavily upon young Raynor, he
+descended to the dining-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+THE CLOUDBURST
+
+
+The delay, trifling though it was, occasioned by the smashing of the
+tobacco jar and the discovery of the photograph, served to interfere
+with the smooth progress of events, as it fell out that Cleek did not,
+after all, rejoin the party below in time to witness the first meeting
+between Geoffrey Clavering and Lady Katharine Fordham, for the carriage
+had arrived at the entrance to the house before he put in an appearance,
+and the General and Mrs. Raynor, Ailsa and Lady Katharine, were out on
+the veranda talking excitedly with young Clavering when Harry and Cleek
+came upon the scene.
+
+There is a subtle magic in love that dispels all other emotions, and
+despite the gravity of the situation, a look of happiness radiated from
+Lady Katharine's face, reflected, though in a far lesser degree, upon
+Geoffrey Clavering's; indeed it did not need an over-keen eye to detect
+that the young man was seriously ill at ease, and general conversation
+languished.
+
+Cleek's entry, therefore, with young Raynor's announcement of his sudden
+attack of faintness, not only drew all attention, but, as he had
+foreseen, he became an object of extreme solicitude upon the part of
+the ladies.
+
+"Crocked up, poor beggar, and came within an ace of bowling over,"
+explained young Raynor as he led him to a seat in a big wicker chair.
+"Sharp attack of indigestion, if I know the symptoms. Bet you a hat,
+mater, it was that beastly cheese soufflé we had for lunch. Enough to
+kill a dog, that stuff. But you will give that silly ass of a cook his
+head, and let him serve up anything he likes. How are you, Clavering?
+Things look like going all right for you after all--eh, what? 'Tisn't
+every man who can have his rival's wind shut off to order."
+
+The remark could not be said to be a happy one, despite the fact that
+the maker of it laughed as though he had just perpetrated a witticism;
+for even his doting mother could not but deplore it.
+
+"Harry, darling, how can you?" she said reproachfully, as young
+Clavering coloured and the two girls looked distressed and indignant.
+"Darling, you ought to think before you speak."
+
+"Huh!" grunted the disgusted General. "If he did, he probably wouldn't
+speak at all. It seems to me, Harry, that you must lie awake at nights
+planning how you can arrange to say just the wrong thing upon all
+occasions--you do it so constantly."
+
+"Oh, that's it--just lay everything on me!" responded his dutiful
+offspring sulkily. "I'm always doing the wrong thing--if you believe
+what other people say. Seems to me that the best thing I can do is to
+take myself off, and then everybody will be happy. I say, Barch, when
+you feel like yourself again you'll find me either at the stables or in
+the pater's blessed ruin taking lessons in etiquette from the family
+ghost--if the pater has been able to rake up one and coax him to reside
+there."
+
+And with this ill-natured dig at his father's pet weakness this engaging
+young gentleman lurched down the steps of the veranda and walked surlily
+away round the angle of the house.
+
+The place which he had spoken of as "the pater's ruin" was a little fad
+of the General's, whose love of antiquities and the like had tempted him
+to transform a bare and unattractive part of the Grange grounds into
+something at least picturesque if not in the very highest good taste.
+Ancient ruins had always been a passion with him, but as you can't have
+ancient ruins in modern Wimbledon, the General had had a ruin built for
+himself, modelling it after the crumbling remains of an old Scottish
+castle which had appealed to his artistic eye, planting it with ferns
+and enwrapping ivy and vines of Virginia creeper, and even supplying it
+with owls and bats to keep up the illusion. It was his one harmless
+weakness, his one foible--that ruin; and nobody but his son ever mocked
+him for it, though many laughed in their sleeves and secretly made game
+of his foolish whim.
+
+Cleek had heard of the "ruin" at Wuthering Grange before he had ever set
+foot inside the gates of the place; and hearing of it again--now, like
+this--he felt that he would like to kick the young cub who could
+publicly mock his father's folly in this fashion. He saw the General's
+kindly old face flush with anger and mortification, and was not at all
+surprised when he presently made an excuse to get away and retired
+indoors.
+
+Meantime, Cleek's plan of pretending illness had panned out precisely as
+he had imagined, and was productive of the results he desired.
+Essentially feminine and of a highly sympathetic nature, Lady Katharine
+hovered near him, doing all in her power to ease the sufferings of one
+whom she shrewdly suspected of being very near to the heart of her
+dearest friend, and this naturally brought Geoffrey to the little group
+surrounding him, and enabled him to study his attitude at close
+quarters.
+
+The more he saw of Sir Philip Clavering's son and heir, the better he
+liked him; but although the young man occasionally turned an adoring
+look upon Lady Katharine, and appeared to be doing his best to share her
+evident high spirits, it was apparent to Cleek, after a moment's study,
+that his attitude was for the most part assumed. He made no attempt to
+get away from the others and have the lady of his heart all to himself,
+and whenever he and she were for a moment separated from Mrs. Raynor and
+Ailsa Lorne, he was nervous, distressed, and acted with an air of
+restraint that was as puzzling as it was pronounced.
+
+A chance remark regarding the state of Lord St. Ulmer's health brought
+from Lord St. Ulmer's daughter the happy, excited remark:
+
+"Oh, Geoff, dear, he's improving every hour, and he has been so
+wonderfully kind and tender to me this afternoon that I could kiss him.
+Just think, he says that things can go on now just as they did before
+Count de Louvisan came; that there is nothing now to come between us,
+Geoff; nothing to keep us apart for another moment!"
+
+"Really? That's ripping!" said young Clavering, and in his effort to
+appear delighted smiled the ghastliest parody of a smile possible to
+conceive. It was so pronounced that even Lady Katharine herself noticed
+it and looked puzzled and distressed.
+
+"You don't seem very glad," she said, a note of pain in her voice, a
+look of pain in her reproachful eyes. "_Aren't_ you glad, Geoff? And is
+that why you did not come over to see me before?"
+
+"Don't be silly, Kathie. I couldn't come any earlier because--well,
+because I couldn't, that's all."
+
+"A very lucid explanation, I must say. What is the matter with you,
+Geoff? You're not a bit like yourself to-day--is he, Ailsa?"
+
+But Ailsa made no reply. There was none really needed. Geoffrey had
+taken hardly any notice, but as if struck with a sudden thought, whipped
+out a notebook and began shuffling the pages nervously through his
+fingers.
+
+"I'd nearly forgotten, Kathie," he said apologetically; "my mother asked
+if you would lend her these books." He handed her the torn leaf with
+something scribbled upon it. "Any time will do, but she said you would
+have them."
+
+Lady Katharine looked down at the writing, and a wave of colour surged
+over her face.
+
+"But----" she commenced.
+
+"I don't want them now; in fact, I can't stop even now, only I just
+wanted to know that you were all right."
+
+There was no mistaking the look of adoration on the young man's face,
+but she looked at him reproachfully.
+
+"Going back again, so soon!" she said softly, averting her head, while
+her lips trembled and her hand clutched painfully on the leaf of the
+notebook.
+
+"I'm afraid I must, dear," responded Geoff. Then he turned swiftly to
+Cleek, who had been watching the little scene, the peculiar one-sided
+smile looping up the corners of his mouth.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Barch; pleased to have met you," he said without,
+however, coming forward and offering his hand.
+
+"Thanks! same to you; good-bye," replied Cleek, and that same smile was
+still on his face when a minute or two later, young Clavering having
+taken his departure, Cleek was rejoined by Ailsa Lorne.
+
+"What do you think about it?" she asked abruptly. "What is it that is
+wrong? Oh, Mr. Cleek, do you think----"
+
+"I'll be beyond 'thinking' before the morning. I shall know," he
+interposed. "Now, show me the way to that ruin, please. I want a word or
+two with Mr. Harry Raynor if he is there. Down that path, is it? Thanks
+very much." And swinging down from the veranda, he moved away in the
+direction indicated.
+
+A brisk two minutes' walk brought him to the picturesque ruin with its
+ivy-wrapped walls, its gaping Gothic windows, and its fern-bedded
+battlements, so artfully copied that the stones actually seemed to be
+crumbling and the plants to have been set there by Nature rather than by
+man. Even the appearance of a dried-up moat and a ruined drawbridge was
+not wanting to complete the picture and to give an air of genuine
+antiquity; and he had just stepped on the latter to make his way across
+to the wide arch of the entrance when he was hailed, not from within,
+but from behind.
+
+He faced round suddenly to see young Raynor moving quickly toward him.
+He was walking rapidly, and appeared to be in a state of great
+excitement.
+
+"I say, Barch, hold on a moment, will you?" he sang out. Cleek gave him
+time to get to the drawbridge and then the reason for his excitement
+became known. "Look here, old chap, I'm afraid we shall have to give up
+our little 'lark' for this evening, after all. Rotten bad luck, but I've
+just got a message that will call me to--well, somewhere else; and I've
+got to go at once. Don't expect I shall be able to get back this side of
+midnight; but if you don't mind prolonging your stay and making it two
+nights instead of one----"
+
+"Not in the least. Delighted, old chap."
+
+"Oh, well, then, that's all right. Have our night out to-morrow
+instead--eh, what? Look here, Barch, blest if I don't like you
+immensely. Let you into the secret. It'll be with 'Pink Gauze.'"
+
+"Pink Gauze? Don't mean the little Frenchy, do you--the little beauty of
+the photograph?"
+
+"The very identical. Be a good boy, Barchie, and I'll take you to see
+her to-morrow night. What do you think--eh, what?"
+
+Cleek didn't say what he thought; it would have surprised the young man
+if he had.
+
+"Well, ta-ta until midnight or thereabouts, old chap. So long!" And with
+a wave of the hand he was gone.
+
+Cleek stood and looked after him for a moment, a curl on his lip, an
+expression of utter contempt in his eyes; then he gave his head a jerk
+indicative of a disgust beyond words, and, facing about, walked on into
+the ruins.
+
+The General had done the thing well, at all events. The atmosphere of
+antiquity was very cleverly reproduced: walls, roof, floor--all had the
+appearance of not having been disturbed by the hand of any one for ages.
+Half-defaced armorial bearings, iron-studded doors, winding staircases,
+even a donjon keep.
+
+This he came to realize when the sight of a rusted iron ring in the
+floor tempted him to pull up and lay back a slab of stone that appeared
+centuries old, and to expose in doing so a twisting flight of stone
+steps leading downward into the very depths of the earth.
+
+Really, you know, the old chap had done it well. Cells down there, no
+doubt--cells and chains and all that sort of thing. Well, he had time to
+spare; he'd go down and have a look at those cells. And, leaving the
+stone trap-slab open, he went down the black stairway into the blacker
+depths below, flicking the light of his torch about and going from cell
+to cell. One might swear that the place was centuries old. Rusty old
+barred doors, rustier old chains hanging from rings in the walls.
+Nothing modern, nothing that looked as if it had known use or been
+disturbed for these hundreds of years; nothing that---- Hello! There was
+a break in the illusion, at all events: a garden spade, with fresh earth
+clinging to the blade of it, leaning against the wall. Fancy a man so
+careful of preserving an atmosphere of antiquity letting one of the
+gardeners leave---- No, b'gad! it hadn't been left merely by chance. It
+had been brought here for use, and was probably left for _further_ use.
+There was a place over in that corner that most decidedly had been
+recently dug up.
+
+He walked over to the place in question and directed the glow of the
+torch so that the circle of light fell full upon it. Somebody had been
+digging in the earthen floor of the cell, and had made an attempt to
+hide the fact by sprinkling bits of stone and plaster scraped from the
+walls over it. In the ordinary course of things, and with a light less
+powerful than this of the electric torch, the thing would have passed
+muster very well, and would, in all probability, have escaped
+observation. Now, asked Cleek of himself, what the dickens should any
+one wish to dig in this place for? And, having dug, why try to disguise
+the fact? Hum-m-m!
+
+He switched round suddenly, walked to the place where the spade stood,
+in the angle of the wall opposite, took it up, and, returning, began to
+dig where the digging had been done before.
+
+This he had to do in the darkness, for the moment his thumb was removed
+from the button of the torch the light went out. But, having once
+located the place, this was not difficult, for the earth, having once
+before been disturbed, yielded easily to the spade.
+
+For five--possibly six--minutes he worked on, shovelling out the loose
+earth and tossing it aside unseen; then, of a sudden, the spade
+encountered something which, though soft and yielding, would not allow
+the blade to penetrate it at all, press his foot down as hard as he
+might. If Cleek knew anything at all, he knew that that betokened a
+fabric of some sort, and knew, too, that he had got to the bottom of the
+original excavation.
+
+He laid aside the spade, and the electric torch spat its light into the
+hole.
+
+Clothing at the bottom of it--buried clothing!
+
+He stooped and pulled it to the surface, letting the articles thus
+unearthed drop one by one from his fingers. A cap, a pair of trousers, a
+coat with a badge on it, a stick with a loop of leather by which to
+carry it, a belt, and a number on that belt.
+
+He looked at the number; it was a brass "4." He looked at the badge, and
+then rose upright, clamping his jaws hard and understanding.
+
+What he had unearthed was the clothing of the Common keeper who had been
+done to death last night--the clothing which the assassin had stolen and
+worn.
+
+And he had found that clothing here, hidden in the grounds of Wuthering
+Grange! Why, then, in that case, the murderer---- He stopped; and the
+thought went no farther--stopped, and releasing the button of the torch,
+let utter darkness swing in and surround him.
+
+Some one had entered the ruin--some one was moving about overhead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+THE THUNDERBOLT
+
+
+It was not a man's foot that made that soft noise; his trained ear
+recognized that fact at once. A woman, eh? What woman would be coming
+here at this time when all the ladies of the household would be in their
+rooms dressing for dinner?
+
+He crept in the darkness out of the cell in which he had been digging,
+through the one next and through the next again, until he came to the
+passage leading to the staircase, and then, dropping on his hands and
+knees, went soundlessly up the stone steps.
+
+Above him as he crept upward--as slow as any tortoise and with far less
+noise--sounded the woman's faint footfalls pacing the paved floor with
+that persistent restlessness which tells of extreme agitation. He had
+but just begun to ask himself what that agitation might portend, when
+something occurred which caused him to twitch up his head with a jerk
+and crouch there, a thing all eyes and ears.
+
+The woman's footsteps had ceased abruptly, brought to a sudden halt by
+the ring of others--the nervous, heavy-heeled, fast-falling steps of an
+excited man coming across the drawbridge and into the ruin at a pace
+which was almost a run; and that man had no more than come into range
+of the woman's vision when the thin, eager voice of Lady Katharine
+Fordham sounded and made the situation clear.
+
+It was a tryst--the lovers' meeting upon which Cleek had built such high
+hopes and upon which he had blundered by the merest fluke.
+
+"Geoff!" sounded that enlightening voice, with a nervous catch in it
+which told of a hard-hammering heart. "Thank heaven you have come. Ailsa
+thinks I am in my room dressing for dinner. Now tell me what it is all
+about, there's a dear, for my head has been in a whirl ever since I read
+what you wrote. Why did you want me to come here and meet you without
+anybody knowing? Whatever can it be that you 'have to say to me that no
+one on this earth must hear'? Do tell me. I'm frightened half to death!"
+
+"Are you?" His footsteps clicked sharply as he moved rapidly across the
+floor toward her. "You have not gone so far as I, then, for I believe I
+have been frightened _past_ death, and that after this nothing on earth
+or in heaven or hell can appall me! Come here, into my arms, and let me
+hold you while I speak. How I love you! My God, how I love you!"
+
+"Geoff!"
+
+"Put your arms round me. Kiss me! I want you to know that I love you so
+well I'll fight all the dogs of justice and all the devils of hell but
+what I'll stand by you and save you from them. They can't kill my love
+for you. Nothing on God's earth can do that. I'll come between them and
+you no matter what happens, no matter what it costs me--life with all
+the rest. That's what I've come to tell you! But, oh, my God, Kathie,
+why didn't you let _me_ kill him?"
+
+"Kill him, Geoff? Good heavens, what are you talking about? Kill whom?"
+
+"De Louvisan!"
+
+"De Louvisan? Let you kill De Louvisan-- I? Oh, my God!
+Geoff--you--think--_I_--killed--killed--him?"
+
+Geoff groaned and buried his face in his hands. "There was no one in the
+house but you," he said hoarsely. "It was you who took me into the
+place; it was you who showed me his dead body spiked up there against
+the wall--you and you alone. My God! Kathie, what is the use of denying
+what we both know?"
+
+Cleek sucked in his breath, drew every muscle of his body taut as wire,
+and then crouching back in the darkness listened intently.
+
+Lady Katharine remained perfectly silent for a moment, as though she had
+been stricken dumb by the directness of the charge: as though the
+half-despairing, half-impatient protest of that final "What is the use
+of denying what we both know?" had impressed her with a realization of
+the utter futility of longer endeavouring to act a part.
+
+It was either that that held her silent, Cleek told himself, or she was
+utterly amazed, utterly overcome by an accusation which had no
+foundation in fact and had fallen upon her like a thunderbolt. If the
+latter should prove to be the case, why, then, Geoff Clavering would be
+lying, and she would be wholly and entirely innocent of the crime with
+which he had charged her.
+
+Then she spoke suddenly:
+
+"You mean this thing? You really and truly _mean_ it?"
+
+Geoff bowed his head in silent assent.
+
+"That I--I--did this thing?"
+
+Still he could not answer, could not put into brutal words the
+conviction that had been forced upon him.
+
+"That I met you and took you into Gleer Cottage last night?" she went
+on. "Took you in there and showed you that man's--body? I?"
+
+"Not exactly showed it to me--that, as we both know, is an exaggeration.
+You showed me into the room where it was hanging, however. Or, at least,
+you waved me to the door and told me to go in there and wait a minute or
+two and you'd rejoin me and show me something that would 'light the way
+back to the land of happiness!' But you never did rejoin me. I waited in
+that dark room for fully ten minutes but you never came back. Afterward,
+when I struck a match to light a cigarette and saw that dead man spiked
+to the wall-- God! I think I went mad for the moment. I know I ran out
+of the house, although I do not know when nor how; for when I came to my
+senses I was racing up and down the right-of-way across the fields; and
+if it had not been for you I should have run on until I dropped. But all
+of a sudden I remembered you, remembered that in rushing out of the
+house I had left you there; and you might come back to that room and
+find me gone, and think that I had deserted you. I ran back to the place
+as fast as I could. I remembered that when first you met me and took me
+into it you had led me in through the gates and up the drive to the
+door; but when I got back there a horror of the place seized me. I
+couldn't have gone in that way again had my life depended upon it. There
+was a break in the boundary wall. I got back into the grounds that way,
+cutting my wrist--look, see, here's the mark--on the fragments of broken
+glass which still adhered to the coping. I ran through the gardens and
+round to the back of the house. I burst open the rear door and raced
+along the passage to the room where De Louvisan's body hung. You were
+not there. I struck another match to see, noticing this time that there
+was the half of a candle standing upon the mantelpiece, where it had
+been secured in its own wax. I took that thing and lit it and ran
+through all the house, hunting for you. There was not a trace of you
+anywhere--and at last, in a panic, I rushed from the house and flew for
+my very life. But there was no getting away so easily as all that.
+Lights were shining, men were coming, the hue and cry had begun. I could
+not go forward; I dared not go back. I remembered the old hollow tree
+where we used to play in our kiddy days, you and I. I ran to that and
+got inside of it--and I was there through all that followed. I was found
+in time, and it might have ended badly for me but for my father's
+friend, Mr. Narkom, and a French detective--a muff of a fellow named De
+Lesparre. It didn't, however. I got off scot free, thanking God that no
+suspicion pointed your way, and telling myself that you had not left so
+much as one hair from the ermine cloak you wore that might be caught up
+as a clue to bring the thing home to you!"
+
+"The ermine cloak I wore! You say I wore an ermine cloak?"
+
+"Yes. An ermine cloak and the same pretty white frock you had worn at
+the Close earlier in the evening. It was the white of the ermine that
+first attracted my attention in the darkness when I looked up and saw
+you near the gates of Gleer Cottage."
+
+"That is not the truth!" she flung back, with a sudden awakening from
+the sort of stupor which, up till now, had mastered her. "I never wore
+an ermine cloak in my life! I never was nearer to Gleer Cottage last
+night than I am at this minute; and if you say that I met you, that I
+spoke to you, that I even saw you, or that you saw me after Ailsa Lorne
+led me out of the drawing-room at Clavering Close when you threatened
+the Count de Louvisan's life, you are saying what is absolutely untrue."
+
+"Kathie!"
+
+"I repeat it, utterly and absolutely untrue."
+
+"Good God! Do you accuse me of lying?"
+
+"There must be some horrible mistake. Some one impersonated me for some
+awful purpose. You never saw me again after I left your father's house
+last night, and you know it. But, in any case, since you confess that
+you were there, what took you to Gleer Cottage last night at all?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+A QUESTION OF VERACITY
+
+
+Geoffrey Clavering's reply to Lady Katharine's staggering question was
+given so promptly that one might have been tempted to believe he had
+expected it and prepared himself for the question beforehand.
+
+"I had no idea of going there at first," he said. "I couldn't remain
+among the guests after you had left the Close and Narkom's men had
+bundled that De Louvisan out of the house; my head seemed full of fire,
+and I simply couldn't. I got away as soon as I decently could, and went
+upstairs to my own room. I couldn't stop there, either; the stillness
+and the loneliness half maddened me and set me to thinking and thinking
+until I thought my head would burst. So, in sheer desperation, I caught
+up a cap, sneaked down the back stairs, and let myself out. Nobody saw
+me go, and, thank God, nobody saw me return, either. I walked about the
+Common for heaven knows how long before I turned round at the sound of
+some one coming toward me through the mist, and the next thing I knew I
+'bumped' smack into that person, and found it to be my stepmother."
+
+"Lady Clavering?" said the girl in a tone of the utmost surprise--and
+Cleek could have blessed her for the words, since they voiced an inquiry
+upon a subject which he much desired to have explained. "You mean to say
+that Lady Clavering was out there on the Common, away from her guests?
+What could have impelled her to take such a step--and at such a time?"
+
+"She had come in search of me, she said. She felt anxious, distressed,
+afraid, so she said, that I would do something desperate, and went to my
+room to talk with me. When she found it empty she jumped to the
+conclusion that I had gone out for the purpose of following De Louvisan
+and meeting him somewhere for the mere satisfaction of thrashing him.
+She begged and implored me to come back to the Close; to do nothing
+rash; to think of my father; to remember her; to be careful to do
+nothing that would get your name mixed up in a vulgar brawl. And she
+wouldn't leave me until I promised her on my word of honour that I would
+make no effort to find De Louvisan. When I did that, she was satisfied
+and went back to the Close."
+
+In the darkness of the stone staircase Cleek puckered up his brows and
+thoughtfully pinched his chin.
+
+Oho! so that was the explanation of her ladyship's presence on the
+Common last night, was it? Mere solicitude for the welfare of a beloved
+stepson, eh? Hum-m-m! Rather disappointing, to say the least of it, to
+find that she had no more connection with the case than just that. After
+all, she was merely "a red herring drawn across the trail," eh? He
+shouldn't have thought so, but, of course, if young Clavering spoke the
+truth, that eliminated _her_ from the affair altogether. Odd that she
+should have bribed the Common keeper not to say a word about having met
+her! In the circumstances, why should she have done so?
+
+Ah, yes--just so! She wouldn't like to have the affair talked about; she
+wouldn't like to have young Geoff put on his guard, so that he might
+purposely avoid meeting her, and she would be most anxious to get him
+back into the house as quietly and as expeditiously as possible. No,
+decidedly, you never can be certain. Women are queer fish at the best of
+times, and mothers have odd methods of reasoning when beloved sons are
+concerned. But stepmothers? Hum-m-m! Yes, yes! To be sure, there are
+always exceptions. Still, he hadn't thought--he decidedly had not
+thought----
+
+Young Clavering was speaking again. Cleek let the "thought" trail off
+and lose itself, and pricked up his ears to listen.
+
+"I suppose it was her speaking of you that first put the idea into my
+head," Geoff went on, "and impelled me to walk over to the place where
+we had been so happy before your father returned from Argentina and
+spoiled everything for us. That's why I went. That's how I came to meet
+you there."
+
+"You did not meet me there!" she flung back indignantly. "Really this is
+past a jest."
+
+"A jest? You think I'm likely to jest over it--a thing that threatens
+the life of the girl I love? In the name of heaven, Kathie, put an end
+to this nonsense. You know I did meet you there! You know how surprised
+I was when I got to the place to see you stealing out of the gates. Why,
+the very moment you saw me you spoke my name, and that I had no more
+than just time to say to you, 'For God's sake, Kathie, how did you come
+here?' when you plucked me by the sleeve and said, 'Come in, come in;
+I'll show you something that will light the way back to the land of
+happiness, dear!' And after all that to face me down like this--to
+pretend that you were not there. It is simply ridiculous."
+
+"I am glad you can give it so mild a name," said the girl coldly. "To me
+it seems the cruellest and the wickedest falsehood a man could possibly
+utter. Dear God! what has come over you, Geoff? Are you mad, or are you
+something worse, to come here and make this abominable lying charge
+against me--against _me_? And when you know in your heart that there is
+not one word of truth in it!"
+
+"Oh, for God's sake, don't treat me as if I were a fool, Katharine. Who
+is there to impersonate you, and for what reason? I know what I know, I
+know what I've seen, what I've heard, what I've been through! Then what
+in heaven's name is the use of keeping up this idle pretence with me?"
+
+"It is not a pretence--it is the truth, the simple and the absolute
+truth!" she replied with heat. "If they were the last words I had to
+say in this world, I would repeat on the very threshold of the one to
+come: _I was not at Gleer Cottage last night._ I came straight from
+Clavering Close to Wuthering Grange, and I never left my room for one
+instant from that time until I came down to breakfast this morning.
+Ailsa Lorne was with me when I returned; she will tell you that I am
+speaking the truth."
+
+Yes, decidedly Ailsa Lorne would tell him; that Cleek acknowledged to
+himself. Had she not done so already? But again she might also have told
+him that she thought she heard Lady Katharine's bedroom door open in the
+night and some one steal out of it. Besides, there was another
+thing--the golden capsule of the scent bracelet--to be reckoned with.
+Hum-m-m! Was there, then, a possibility that Geoff Clavering was
+speaking the truth, and that it was Lady Katharine herself who was
+lying? Of course, in that case---- Stop a bit--they were going at it
+again, and he could not afford to lose a single word.
+
+"I don't care a hang what Ailsa Lorne or anybody else will say; I know
+what I know," young Clavering flung in doggedly. "You can't tell me that
+I didn't see a thing when I did see it--at least, you can't and expect
+to make me believe it. Give me credit for a little common sense."
+
+"How can I when your own words so utterly refute it, when you convict
+yourself out of your own mouth, when even the dead man himself is a
+witness to the utter folly of this charge?"
+
+"De Louvisan?"
+
+"Yes. He speaks for me!"
+
+"What nonsense!"
+
+"He speaks for me," she repeated, not noticing the interruption, "and if
+you will not believe a living witness, then you must believe a dead one.
+Uncle Raynor and Harry said this morning that the Count de Louvisan's
+body had been found, not lying on the ground, but lifted up and spiked
+to the wall; and you who claim to have seen me in that house last night
+claim also to have searched the place and found no one but me present.
+Will you tell me, then, how I could possibly have lifted the body of a
+man weighing ten or eleven stone at the least computation, much less
+have lifted it high enough to spike it to a wall?"
+
+"One for the girl!" commented Cleek silently.
+
+"You might have had help; there might have been somebody there who left
+before I arrived," replied Geoff.
+
+"And another one for the man!" Cleek was obliged to admit. "Which of
+this interesting pair is doing the lying? They can't both be speaking
+the truth. At least, they can't unless---- By Jupiter! Hum-m-m! Quite
+so! Quite so! 'Write me down an ass, gentlemen,' and an ass with a
+capital A." Then the curious one-sided smile travelled up his cheek, and
+lingered there longer than usual.
+
+Young Clavering's last remark had hurt the girl more than anything he
+had yet said; hurt her so deeply that she gave a little shuddering cry
+and, womanlike, broke into tears.
+
+"That is the wickedest thing of all!" she said. "The very wickedest
+thing of all. I can't doubt any longer that you have made up your mind
+to bolster up this abominable thing by every possible insult to me!"
+
+"Insult? What funny things are sometimes said by accident!" he flung
+back stridently. "I am likely to 'insult' you when I'm ready to stand by
+you through thick and thin, am I not? And to lie till I'm black in the
+face, so that I keep others from knowing what I know!"
+
+"You don't know it--you can't know it! It never happened! I was not in
+that house last night, and you did not see me there!"
+
+"Oh, well then, let us say I didn't," impatiently. "What does it matter
+one way or the other? Say I didn't, then! Say _I_ murdered him; but, for
+God's sake, don't say I insult you when I have come here merely to show
+you how much I love you--how ready I am to fight the whole world for
+you. Come back into my arms, and let me tell you what I want to tell,
+dear. Come back, and don't fear anything or anybody on earth. They
+shan't touch you! They shan't lift a finger to harm you, say one single
+word against you; and God help the first that tries it, that's all! A
+man doesn't cease to love a woman just because she does a desperate
+thing for his sake. No, not he! If he's worthy of the name of man, he
+loves her all the better for it. That's how I love you! Better to-day
+than I ever loved you in all the days that were; better than I shall
+ever love anything in all the days that are to be. I don't care if you
+are red with the blood of a hundred men, you're the girl I love, the
+girl I mean to marry, the girl I'm going to stand up and fight for as
+long as there's breath left in my body!"
+
+"Marry--marry?" Her voice struck through his even before he had finished
+speaking, and there was a sting in it that bit. "Do you think for one
+instant that I would marry you when you make such a charge as that
+against me? Do you think I would? Do you? I'd no more marry you than I
+would cut off my right hand, Geoff Clavering, after you have slandered
+me and lied about me like this."
+
+"Kathie, dearest----"
+
+"No--please! If you touch me I think I shall faint! Stay where you are!
+Let me alone! Ah, please do--please! I have suffered and suffered and
+suffered, but not like this; oh, never like this before! That you should
+say these things--you! That you should even dream of saying them! You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself--ashamed!"
+
+"Kathie, darling----"
+
+"No, no--don't, please don't; it would be wicked to touch me when I am
+suffering so much. I want to get back to my room-- I want to lie down;
+my head will split if I don't. Please do not follow me; please stay
+where you are. I won't say a word to anybody; I promise you I won't.
+I'll try to bear it, I'll try to forget it. Nine years! Dear God, nine
+years; and--those marks totalled nine!"
+
+He jumped as though some one had stabbed him; a red wave rushed up and
+crimsoned all his face, then flashed out of existence again and left it
+waxen white.
+
+"Good God! you won't attempt to suggest----" he began, then lost the
+power of speaking altogether, and stood looking at her with blank eyes
+and with colourless lips hard shut as she crept on through the shadowy
+dusk to where the doorway of the ruin showed a pointed arch against the
+dimming saffron of a twilight sky. A moment her drooping figure stood
+there against that shield of yellow light, pausing irresolute with one
+foot on the edge of the drawbridge, one hand pressed to her head; then
+she turned and looked back at the place where he stood. But in the dim
+dusk of the ruin she could scarcely see him.
+
+"I will never speak, I will never tell--even to the day I die I won't!"
+she said in a whisper; then waited an instant as if expecting a reply,
+and getting none, added yet more sadly, "Good-bye," and went across the
+drawbridge to the darkening gardens, and was gone.
+
+For a minute the man made neither movement nor sound till of a sudden
+there came something so totally unexpected as to cause him to literally
+jump. Some one had given a none too perfect representation of a muffled
+sneeze, telling him that he was not alone.
+
+"Who's there? Who are you?" he cried in an excited whisper
+
+But nobody answered.
+
+"Do you hear what I say? Come out and show yourself, whoever you are!"
+he called in a slightly louder tone; and then, getting no answer this
+time either, he fumbled in his pocket, fished out his match box, and
+struck a vesta.
+
+The glimmering light showed him what the dusk had so successfully
+concealed heretofore--namely, the gap in the floor and the underside of
+the slab which usually covered the entrance to the underground cells,
+but which was now laid back on its hinges with its lower side upmost and
+the way to the stone staircase in full view. And in the very instant he
+made this discovery there rolled up from that gap the sound of somebody
+running away.
+
+In a sort of panic young Clavering made a dash for the trap, and was
+through it and down the stone steps in almost no time, the wax vesta
+flickering and flaring in the fingers of his upraised hand and sending
+gushes of light weaving in and out among the arches of the passage and
+the gaping doorways of the mimic cells.
+
+Nobody in sight. He called, but nobody answered; he commanded, but
+nobody came forth. And with the intention of routing the author of the
+sneeze and the footsteps, he had just started forward to investigate the
+cells themselves, when the match burnt his fingers and was flung down
+sharply. Darkness shut in as though a curtain had fallen. He fumbled
+with the box to get another match, and had almost secured one when he
+heard a movement behind him and flashed round on his heel.
+
+"Anybody there?" he rapped out sharply.
+
+"Yes; Cleek, of Scotland Yard!" answered a bland voice immediately in
+front of him; then there was a sharp spring, a swift rustle, a metallic
+click-click! His match box was on the floor, and a band of steel was
+locked about each wrist.
+
+"Good Lord! you've put handcuffs on me, you infernal scoundrel!"
+Clavering cried out indignantly. "What is the meaning of this outrage?
+What are----Here! chuck that! Confound your cheek! what are you doing to
+my ankles?"
+
+"Same thing as I've done to your wrists," replied Cleek serenely.
+"Sorry, but I shall have to carry you, my young friend; and I can't risk
+getting my shins kicked to a pulp."
+
+"Carry me? Carry me where? Good God, man! not to jail?"
+
+"Oh, no. That may come later, and certainly will come if you are guilty.
+For the present, however, I am simply going to carry you to a rather
+uncomfortable cell at the end of the passage, and put you where you
+won't be able to run away. I am afraid, however, that I shall have to
+gag you as well as handcuff you, and make you more uncomfortable still.
+But I'll manage somehow to get some bedding of some sort, and to see
+that you don't miss your dinner. You are going to spend the night here,
+my friend. Now, then, up you come and--there you are, on my shoulder.
+Steady, if you please, while I get out my pocket torch to light the way.
+I suppose you realize that I have heard all that passed between you and
+Lady Katharine Fordham this evening?"
+
+"And you know that I lied, don't you?" put in Geoff eagerly. "You know
+that she _wasn't_ there last night, after all?"
+
+"To the contrary, my friend, I know that she was."
+
+"It's a lie--it's a dashed lie! She never was near the place. That was
+pure bluff. It was I who killed the man."
+
+"Don't tell any more lies than you are obliged to, my lad. I don't
+believe she killed him, and I'm not so very sure that you killed
+him--and there you are."
+
+"Then what are you arresting me for?"
+
+"I'm not arresting you; I'm simply sifting evidence. Your
+stepmother--according to _your_ story--must be very, very fond of you,
+and very, very solicitous for your welfare. And if she risked catching
+cold and having people talk and all that sort of thing to rush out after
+you when you had only been gone for a short time, let's see how she'll
+act when you disappear mysteriously and don't come home all night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+A CHANGE IN THE PROGRAM
+
+
+"I suppose you understand that this is a pretty high-handed sort of
+proceeding?" began young Clavering agitatedly, half indignantly. "Even
+the processes of the law have their limits; and to abduct a man and
+imprison him before there is the ghost of a charge against him----"
+
+There he stopped; his ear caught by a faint metallic click, his eye by a
+little gleam of light that spat out through the darkness and made a
+luminous circle upon the earthen floor of the passage. Cleek had
+switched on his electric torch the better to see his way in carrying his
+captive to the cell of which he had spoken and was now moving with him
+toward it. His interest attracted in yet another direction, Geoffrey
+twitched round his head and made an effort to see the face of his
+captor. Pretty nearly everybody in England had, at one time or another,
+heard of the man, and a not unnatural curiosity to see what he was like
+seized upon young Clavering.
+
+His effort to satisfy that curiosity was, however, without fruit, for
+the downward-directed torch cast only that one spot of light upon the
+floor and left everything else in the depths of utter darkness. But
+that Cleek was aware of this desire upon the part of the young man and
+of his effort to satisfy it, was very soon made manifest.
+
+"In a minute, my friend--have a little patience," he said serenely. "If
+you wanted to take me unawares you should have remembered that we must
+soon come to the cell and I shall have to set you down, and you could
+then see all that you wanted to without putting me on my guard. What's
+that? Oh, yes, I am frequently off it--even Argus occasionally shut all
+his hundred eyes and went to sleep, remember."
+
+By this time he had travelled the entire length of the passage, and now
+stood upon the threshold of the cell toward which he was aiming. He was
+no longer careful to keep the light from illuminating the surroundings,
+however. Indeed, he had merely done that in the first place to prevent
+Geoff from seeing, as they passed, the excavation he had made and the
+clothing he had dug up. He now flashed the light round and round the
+place as if taking stock of everything. He was not, by the way; what he
+sought was what he had seen in each of the other cells and hoped to find
+here as well--the iron ring in the wall and the short length of rusty
+chain attached to it.
+
+The air of antiquity had been perfectly reproduced, and this cell was as
+carefully equipped as its mates. He walked toward the ring the instant
+he saw it, switched off the light of the torch, swung Geoff down from
+his shoulder, unfastened his ankles and one end of the shackles that
+held his wrists.
+
+"What are you going to do with me now?" demanded young Clavering with
+sudden hopefulness. "I say--look here--is this thing a joke after all,
+and are you going to give me my liberty?"
+
+The only response was a sharp click; then Cleek's hands fell away from
+his captive entirely, and under the impression that he was free, young
+Clavering made an effort to spring up from the ground where he had been
+laid.
+
+A sharp backward jerk and a twinge of the right wrist brought him to a
+realization that while one end of the handcuffs still encircled that
+wrist, the other had been snapped into the ring in the wall, and it was,
+therefore, impossible for him to move ten inches from the spot where he
+had been left.
+
+In the utter darkness he had no means of telling if Cleek had or had not
+left the cell; and in a sort of panic, called out to him.
+
+"I say, officer! Have you left me?" he asked; then hearing a sound quite
+close to him, a sound so clearly that of some one moving and breathing
+that his question was answered without words, he added nervously: "What
+are you up to now? What are you doing that you have to work about it in
+the dark?"
+
+"Merely twisting up a handkerchief into a form of gag," replied Cleek,
+in a tone which clearly indicated that he was speaking with one end of
+that handkerchief held between his teeth. "It is not a nice thought, the
+idea of gagging a gentleman as if he were a murderous navvy or a savage
+dog that needs muzzling. I should much prefer, Mr. Clavering, accepting
+your parole--putting you on your word of honour not to cry out or to
+make any effort to attract the attention of anybody who may enter this
+ruin to-night; and if you will give me that----"
+
+"I'll give you anything rather than undergo any further indignity,"
+snapped Geoff. "Look here, you know, Mr. Thingamy, this is a beastly
+caddish trick altogether, jumping on a man in the dark and giving him no
+chance to defend himself."
+
+"Unfortunately, the law cannot allow itself to study the niceties of
+etiquette, my dear sir," replied Cleek. "It has to go on the principle
+that the end justifies the means, and it must always be prepared to
+accept risks. I, as one of its representatives, am, as I have told you,
+quite ready to accept one now; so if you will give me your word of
+honour not to make any outcry, the gag can be dispensed with."
+
+"Very well, then; I do give it."
+
+"Good! And I accept it; so that's the end of that, as the fellow said
+when he walked off the pier," said Cleek as he ceased twisting up the
+handkerchief and returned it to his pocket. "But why not go farther and
+spare us both an unnecessary amount of trouble and discomfort, Mr.
+Clavering?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean. Put it a little clearer, please. I'm not
+good at guessing things."
+
+"No, you are not; otherwise you might have guessed that when Lady
+Katharine Fordham denied so emphatically what you knew to be true----
+But no matter; we'll talk of that some other time."
+
+"No, we won't!" flashed in Geoff hotly. "We'll leave Lady Katharine
+Fordham's name out of this business altogether. Understand that? I don't
+care whether you're a police officer or not, by George! Any man that
+tries to drag her into this affair will have to thrash me, or I'll
+thrash him, that's all. You can believe what you jolly well please about
+what you overheard. You've got no witness to prove that you did hear it;
+and as for me--I'll lie like a pickpocket and deny every word if you try
+to make capital out of it against her."
+
+Cleek laughed, laughed audibly. But there was a note of gratification,
+even of admiration, underlying it; and he found himself liking this
+loyal, lovable, hot-tempered boy better and better with every passing
+moment. But the laughter nettled Geoff, and he was off like a firework
+in a winking.
+
+"Look here! I'll tell you what!" he flung out hotly. "If you'll set me
+free from this confounded chain and come outside with me and will take a
+sporting chance--if you thrash me I'll take my medicine and do whatever
+you tell me; but if I thrash you, you're to let me go about my business,
+and to say nothing to anybody about what you happened to hear. Now,
+then, speak up. Which are you--a man or a mouse?"
+
+"I know which you are, at all events," replied Cleek, with still another
+laugh. "You have some most original ideas of the workings of the law,
+it must be admitted, if you think Scotland Yard affairs can be settled
+in that way."
+
+"You won't come out and stand up to me like a man, then?"
+
+"No, I won't; because if I did I should catch myself wanting to clap you
+on the back and shake hands with you, and wishing to heaven that I were
+your father. But--wait--stop! You needn't go off like a blessed
+skyrocket, my lad. There's still a way to do very much what you have
+proposed, and that I was about to mention when you tore at me about Lady
+Katharine. I said, if you remember, that you might go farther than
+simply give me your word of honour with regard to the gagging part of
+the matter, and might save us both a lot of trouble and discomfort."
+
+"Yes, I know you did. Well, what of it? What trouble and discomfort can
+be saved?"
+
+"A great deal if you are wise as well as loyal, my boy. It couldn't be a
+very pleasant experience for you to pass the night in a place like this.
+Nevertheless, it is absolutely imperative that you should not return to
+your home to-night, and that your stepmother should have no hint of
+where you had gone or what had become of you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"That's my affair, and you will have to pardon me if I keep it to
+myself. Now, then, why not make matters easier and pleasanter for you
+and for me by giving me your word of honour that if I let you go free
+from this place, and promise not to say one word of what I overheard
+pass between you and Lady Katharine Fordham, you will secretly journey
+up to London, stop there the night, and neither by word, nor deed will
+let a hint of your whereabouts or of what has passed between us this
+evening get to the ears or the eyes of any one at Clavering Close? Come
+now; that's a fair proposition, is it not?"
+
+"I don't know; I can't think what's at the bottom of it. Good
+Lord!"--with a sudden flash of suspicion "you don't mean that you
+suspect that Lady Clavering, my stepmother--and just because I said she
+was out on the Common last night? If that's your game---- Look here,
+she's as pure as ice and as good as gold, my stepmother, and my dear old
+dad loves her as she deserves to be loved. If you've hatched up some
+crazy idea of connecting her with this affair simply because De Louvisan
+was an Austrian and she's an Austrian, too----"
+
+"Oho!" interjected Cleek. "So Lady Clavering is an Austrian, eh? I see!
+I see!"
+
+"No, you don't. And don't you hint one word against her! So if it's part
+of your crawling spy business to get me to give my parole so that you
+may sneak over to Clavering Close and play another of your sneaking
+abduction tricks on her, just as you have played it on me----"
+
+"Ease your mind upon that subject. I have no intention of going near
+Clavering Close, nor yet of sending anybody there. Another thing: I
+have not, thus far, unearthed even the ghost of a thing that could be
+said to connect Lady Clavering with the crime. Do you want me to tell
+you the truth? It is you against whom all suspicions point the
+strongest; and I want you to go away to-night simply that I may know if
+you have spoken the truth, or are an accomplished actor and a finished
+liar!"
+
+"What's that? Good Lord! how can my disappearing for a night prove or
+disprove that?"
+
+"Shall I tell you? Then listen. I meant at first to keep it to myself,
+but----" His voice dropped off; there was a second of silence, then a
+faint clicking sound, and a blob of light struck up full upon his face.
+"Look here," he said suddenly, "do you know this man?"
+
+Clavering looked up and saw in the circle of light a face he had never
+seen in life before--a hard, cynical face with narrowed eyes and a
+thin-lipped, cruel mouth.
+
+"No," he said, "if that is what you look like. I never saw such a man
+before."
+
+"Nor this one?"
+
+In the circle of light the features of the drawn face writhed curiously,
+blent, softened, altered--made of themselves yet another mask. And young
+Clavering, pulling himself together with a start, found himself looking
+again into the living countenance of Monsieur Georges de Lesparre.
+
+"Good heavens above!" he said with a catch in his voice. "Then you were
+that man--you? And Mr. Narkom knew all the time?"
+
+"_Oui, m'sieur_--to both questions--_oui_. It shall again be I, _mon
+ami_; and I shall remember me last night vair well. And now since
+_m'sieur_ shall haf so good a recollection of zis party--_voilŕ_! He may
+tell me what he remembers of this one also."
+
+Then in a flash the face was gone, and another--changed utterly and
+completely--was there.
+
+"Barch!" exclaimed young Clavering, shrinking back from the man as
+though he were uncanny. "And you are that man--Philip Barch, Ailsa
+Lorne's friend? You are that man, too?"
+
+"Yes, I am that man, too," replied Cleek. "I have made these silent
+confessions that you may know--that you may understand before I make
+another and equally candid one. If I had chosen not to let you know the
+real identity of Philip Barch, you have seen how easily I could have
+kept that secret. Now that you know me you will understand how honestly
+and straightforwardly I intend to deal with you. You asked me why I
+wanted you to disappear for a night, and I have told you that I may
+prove to my own satisfaction whether you are what I hope you are, or are
+merely a clever actor and an accomplished liar. If what you said about
+your stepmother's reason for following you out upon the Common last
+night is as true as you would have had Lady Katharine Fordham believe,
+her interest in you must be an abnormal one; and if it is as great as
+you represent--ah, well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Not
+all the powers on this earth will be able to keep her indoors should you
+be mysteriously missing. But if it is not so great, if you have lied
+about that as about other things, Lady Clavering will not come out in
+quest of you herself, but will leave that to her husband and her
+servants; and I shall know then that you have simply been playing a
+part--that you have something to hide and some desperate reason for
+hiding it. Now, then, knowing what threatens, knowing what I am up to,
+knowing what trap has been set for you, will you give me your parole and
+go up to London to-night and face the issue of that act like a man?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+A CLEW FROM THE AIR
+
+
+Cleek did not have to wait for his answer.
+
+"Yes, certainly I will," said Geoff instantly. "If there's nothing more
+than that behind it, I'll give you my word of honour and go this moment
+if you want me to do so."
+
+"And you will say nothing, absolutely nothing, to any living soul about
+this--about me--about anything that has happened here?"
+
+Young Clavering gave his promise promptly; and, with equal promptness,
+Cleek walked forward, unlocked the handcuff, and set him free, leading
+him back along the passage to the stone steps, and being careful as they
+passed through the cell where the murdered Common keeper's clothing lay
+that no ray from the torch should disclose his ghastly find. At the foot
+of the stone staircase he came to a halt.
+
+"Now go," he said, "and remember that I trust you. Come back when you
+like to-morrow and make what explanation you please regarding your
+absence. I've trusted you with one or two secrets, and I will trust you
+with another: there's good proof, my lad, that what you said about Lady
+Katharine Fordham being at Gleer Cottage last night is the truth in
+spite of her denial. She dropped the scent capsule from her bracelet
+there, and I found it a few minutes before my boy Dollops found you
+hiding in the hollow tree. No, no, no! Don't get excited. There's
+nothing in that discovery to prove the lady guilty of any part in this
+abominable crime. Last night I was inclined to think that that little
+golden globe pointed toward her having been at least a confederate;
+to-day I have changed my mind, and since I overheard that conversation
+between you two, I have come to the conclusion that it proves her
+absolutely innocent of any complicity whatsoever."
+
+"But how, Mr. Barch?-- I mean Cleek. You know that she was there; you
+know that I, too, was there. It's no use denying that since you're
+'Monsieur de Lesparre' as well as what you are. You heard her deny her
+presence. You heard her say that she did not show me into the room where
+De Louvisan's body was. But she did; as God hears me, she did, though
+I'll never believe her guilty"--this in a last wild effort to divert
+suspicion from her--"whatever I might have said, whatever you may have
+discovered against her."
+
+"I have just said there is nothing against her," said Cleek, with one of
+his curious smiles. "I have come to the conclusion that she is not a
+criminal, but a martyr. I don't believe she has any more idea of who
+murdered De Louvisan, or why, than has a child in its cradle. I know you
+say that she showed you into the room where the dead man's body was;
+but I don't believe, my friend, that she was there. I don't believe she
+ever saw him again after she left Clavering Close, and I do not believe
+that she had the slightest idea that the man--either living or dead--was
+in Gleer Cottage when she led you into it."
+
+"Then why did she lead me into it? Why did she run away and leave me
+there with his dead body? Where did she go? What did she mean by saying
+what she did about showing me something that would light the way back to
+the land of happiness?"
+
+"I hope to be able to tell you all that to-morrow, my friend," replied
+Cleek. "Indeed, I may be able to tell it this very night; for if there
+is anything in the Loisette theory of recurring events acting upon a
+weary brain and producing similar results when----No matter, we shall
+know all about that later. In spite of the fact that that scent capsule
+was dropped in the room where the murder was committed, and dropped
+before you were shown in there, as proved by the fact that you crushed
+it beneath your feet and carried the odour of it from the house with
+you, I do not believe that Lady Katharine knew one word of De Louvisan's
+death until the news of it was carried to her this morning. There!
+That's the last 'secret' I am going to let you into for the present.
+Now, then, off with you; and not a word to anybody before to-morrow. But
+one last thing"--this as Geoffrey began to run up the steps toward the
+open trapdoor--"if you should happen by any chance to catch a glimpse of
+Mr. Harry Raynor while you are in town to-night, keep an eye on
+him--see whom he meets, see where he goes, and mind that he does not see
+you."
+
+"Harry Raynor? I say"--eagerly--"do you think it possible that that
+bounder----"
+
+"No, I don't! A worm and a snake are two entirely different things. That
+young gentleman never killed anything but time and the respect of decent
+men in all the days of his worthless life. He hasn't the necessary grit.
+But watch him if you run foul of him. He may know something that is
+worth while finding out; and, besides that, somebody or something called
+him away very suddenly this afternoon before I could get a chance to
+sound him on a most important subject. He knows a person who is very
+likely to be somewhere at the bottom of this case, that's all. Good-bye.
+And--oh, stop a bit! Just one more word: Happen to know anybody besides
+Mr. Harry Raynor who is addicted to the use of black cosmetic for the
+moustache?"
+
+"Yes," said Geoffrey, pausing halfway up the staircase, and caught by
+the artfulness of this apparently artless question. "Know two other men.
+Why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing in particular; only that I'd like to borrow some. Who are
+the two men in question?"
+
+"Lord St. Ulmer, for one."
+
+"Lord St.---- Hum-m-m! Just so! Just so! And the other; who's he?"
+
+"Why, my dad. Used it for years, bless his bully old heart!"
+
+"Your---- Good-bye!" said Cleek with a curious "snap" in his voice;
+then he faced round suddenly and walked back down the underground
+passage and left Geoff to go his way.
+
+But if he said nothing his thoughts were busy; and this new move in the
+game, this new fish in the net, troubled him a great deal. He could not
+but remember that Sir Philip Clavering was this young man's adoring
+father; that he was also Lady Clavering's husband, who, as he had just
+heard from her stepson, was an Austrian; that the pseudo Count de
+Louvisan was also an Austrian, and after his unexpected appearance at
+Clavering Close last night Lady Clavering had had a sudden attack of
+illness, had left her guests at supper and retired to her own room, and
+afterward had gone out on the Common and had bribed the keeper not to
+mention having seen her.
+
+Why did she go out? Of course that was all nonsense about her being
+anxious over Geoff; but, still--why? To meet some one? You never could
+be quite sure, quite safe, in dealing with those Continental women.
+After all, morality is merely a question of geography. Suppose--simply
+by way of argument, you know, nothing more--suppose the lady had had a
+love affair years before Sir Philip Clavering had met and married her?
+Suppose when De Louvisan turned up she had recognized in him, and he had
+recognized in her---- Quite so! Quite so! De Louvisan, an adventurer
+pure and simple, would be likely to make capital out of a hold obtained
+over the wife of an English millionaire. It would be imperative for her
+to see him at once and buy his silence if she could. Of course! Of
+course! Gleer Cottage was within easy reaching distance; Gleer Cottage
+was known to be absolutely deserted; and if one wanted to have a secret
+interview---- And to carry the hypothesis further, suppose Sir Philip
+Clavering, anxious over his wife's condition, should run up to her room
+to inquire about her, and, finding her gone, should trace her movements,
+go out after her, follow until he came to Gleer Cottage; and as soon as
+she and De Louvisan had parted---- Well, there you are! Then, too, Sir
+Philip Clavering was addicted to the use of black cosmetic! And the
+marks on the dead man's shirt front were---- Heigho! You never know! You
+never know! But for the boy's sake and for the sake of Narkom's fondness
+for both----
+
+His thoughts dropped off. He had come again to the cell where the
+murdered keeper's clothes lay, just where he had flung them down when
+the coming of Geoff and Lady Katharine had attracted his attention and
+turned his interest in another direction. Now he had time to turn to
+them again.
+
+If, by any chance, it really had been Sir Philip Clavering, how came
+these clothes buried in the grounds of Wuthering Grange? Of course the
+General's "ruin" was famous all over the district; and, naturally, if a
+man of Sir Philip Clavering's keen wits were the assassin, he would take
+means to get the things hidden away as expeditiously as possible, and as
+far away from his own place as circumstances would permit. He wouldn't
+know, of course, that circumstances would arise that would point to an
+occupant of Wuthering Grange--Lady Katharine--being implicated and any
+search of the place result, and he would be quite free from wishing to
+lead the trail in that direction. Of course, when he learned that he had
+done so--as learn everybody must in a day or two--he would do his best
+to get rid of the things, and when that happened---- Ah, well! poor
+devil, it would be the end of one rope and the beginning of another.
+
+It was an old, old trick of the assassin's, this burying things and then
+harking back to the spot either to remove them or to see if they were
+safe; and this assassin, whosoever he might prove to be, would be sure
+to follow the universal precedent. When he did----! Cleek bundled the
+clothing back into the hole, took up the spade, shovelled back the
+earth, and made the spot look as nearly as possible as it had been when
+he stumbled upon it.
+
+"A little bit of spy work for Dollops," was his unspoken thought. "He
+can spend a few days down here very profitably, and be ready to give the
+signal when the man comes."
+
+He put the spade back in the place where he had found it, and, facing
+about, went up the stone steps, and after replacing the movable slab,
+made his way out of the ruin; for it was now time to be about the task
+of dressing for dinner and what promised to be an eventful evening.
+
+Should he take Miss Lorne into his confidence or not? Yes, he fancied
+that he would. For one thing, she knew Lady Clavering and he did not,
+and as it would be necessary for him to get out after dark and prowl
+about the Common to learn if her ladyship did or did not join in the
+search for the missing Geoff----Hullo! What the dickens was that?
+
+A very simple thing, indeed, when he came to investigate it. By this
+time he had come abreast of the house itself, and was moving along under
+the shadow of the deepening twilight when the circumstances which sent
+his thoughts off from the plans he was mapping out occurred. It was
+nothing more nor less than the fluttering down through the still air of
+a soft flaky substance, which struck him in the face and then dropped
+softly upon his sleeve--a small charred scrap of burnt paper. He looked
+up, and saw that it had fallen from other charred scraps that clung to
+the prickly branches of a huge monkey-puzzle tree close to the angle
+where a recently added wing joined the main structure of the house.
+
+A window was above that tree, and a chimney was above that window.
+Hum-m-m! Second window from the angle--Lord St. Ulmer's room. What was
+Lord St. Ulmer burning papers for? What sort of papers had he that it
+was necessary for him--a supposed invalid--to get out of bed and
+destroy? And why in the world should he choose this particular day to do
+it? And a lot of paper, too, by George! judging from the quantity of
+charred scraps clinging to that monkey-puzzle. What an ass the man was
+to burn things when there was no wind to carry off the ashes and
+when---- He looked down and saw one or two half-burned discs of paper,
+which had escaped entire destruction, lying upon the gravel of the path.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He stooped and picked one up. It was a circular white label, printed on
+one side and gummed on the other, just the sort of label which chemists
+and proprietors of patent ointments use to affix to the lids of the
+round tin boxes containing their wares. The thing was partly burnt away
+until, from being originally a complete circle, it was now merely a
+"half moon" of white paper with charred fragments clinging to the
+fire-bitten gap in it.
+
+He turned the thing over and looked at its printed side. Part of that
+printing had been destroyed, but there was still enough of it to show
+for what the label had been prepared.
+
+Evidently Lord St. Ulmer had been engaged in burning labels, unused
+labels, that had been prepared for boxes containing a patent blacking
+for boots, shoes, and leather goods generally.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+A BOLD STROKE
+
+
+Cleek stood a moment holding the burnt label between his thumb and
+forefinger and regarding it silently, his face a blank as far as any
+expression of his feelings was concerned. Then, of a sudden, his gaze
+transferred itself to one of the two other labels which, like this one,
+had escaped entire destruction by the fire; and carefully picking them
+up, he laid them inside his pocket notebook, gave a casual, offhand
+sort of glance at the windows of Lord St. Ulmer's room, and then quietly
+resumed his sauntering walk in the direction of the house.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The twilight was now so rapidly fading that it might be said to be all
+but dark when he reached the main entrance to the building and found one
+of the footmen busily engaged in lighting up the huge electric
+chandelier which served to illuminate the broad hallway of the Grange.
+But neither the General nor any of the ladies was visible, all, as he
+correctly surmised, being engaged in the matter of dressing for dinner.
+
+"Pardon me, sir," said the footman, turning at the sound of his step as
+he came in, "I was just about to step out into the grounds to ascertain
+if you might not, by chance, have lost yourself or failed to hear the
+dressing gong, sir. It is quite half an hour since Miss Lorne requested
+me to be on the lookout for you, and I was getting anxious."
+
+"Extremely kind of you, I must say," said Cleek serenely. "But never
+give yourself any uneasiness upon my account so long as I remain here. I
+am given to taking my time on all occasions, my man. I think out all the
+plots of my novels prowling about in silence and alone, and an
+interruption is apt to destroy a train of thought forever." And having
+thus given the man an idea that he was an author--and accounted
+beforehand for any possible need for prowling about the place when the
+others were asleep--he went further, and gave him half a crown to salve
+his injured feelings, and won in return for it something which he would
+have held cheaply bought at a sovereign.
+
+"Now tell me," he went on, "why did Miss Lorne ask you to be 'on the
+lookout' for me? Has anything extraordinary occurred?"
+
+"Oh, no indeed, sir," replied the footman with a full half-crown's worth
+of urbanity; the generosity of the gentleman had touched him on his
+weakest part. "You see, sir, it being the butler's evening off, and Mr.
+Harry having been called away before any arrangements were made with
+regard to your sleeping quarters, sir, Miss Lorne requested me to say
+that she had spoken to mistress, and you were to have any vacant suite
+in the house which might best meet your pleasure, sir. I was to wait
+here and conduct you through all the unoccupied ones in the house."
+
+Cleek smiled. Oho! That was it, eh? Well, there was a thoughtful ally
+and no mistake! Knowing full well that it would be awkward for him to be
+put off into some inconvenient wing of the house, should he have cause
+to leave it secretly and to communicate with Dollops and Narkom at any
+time, she had taken this step to serve and to assist him. What a woman!
+What a gem of a woman she was!
+
+His thoughts worked rapidly, and his mind was made up in a twinkling.
+
+"Quite so, quite so! Very kind and very thoughtful," he said composedly.
+"I always prefer the second story of a building--it's a fad of mine,
+and Miss Lorne recollects it. So if there are any rooms vacant upon the
+second floor----"
+
+"Only one, sir, and it's the least comfortable one in the house, I'm
+afraid, being next to that occupied by Lord St. Ulmer."
+
+"Lord St.--oh, ah--yes! That's the gentleman who is ill, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, sir. That's why I spoke of it as being uncomfortable. Butler says
+he's a very crochety gentleman. But sick folk are always that, sir; so
+maybe you'd be disturbed a deal in the night."
+
+"Hum-m-m! Yes, that is a drawback, certainly. Might take it into his
+head to get up and wander about during the night, and so keep one awake.
+Does he?"
+
+"I couldn't say, sir; never set eyes on him since he arrived. Nobody in
+the house has except master and butler. Don't think he would be likely
+to move about much, though, sir, for I've heard his ankle's sprained and
+he can't put a foot to the ground. Butler always carries up his meals;
+at least, he has done it so far, his lordship having arrived only the
+night before last. Like as not I'll have to carry up his dinner
+to-night, this being, as I've said, sir, butler's evening off."
+
+Cleek made a mental tally. Then if none of the servants at the Grange
+had seen his lordship, with the single exception of Johnston, the
+butler---- Quite so, quite so! His lordship wouldn't know what the other
+servants were like, so, of course---- He glanced at the footman out of
+the tail of his eye. Livery, dark bottle-green--almost black; would pass
+for black in anything but a brilliant light. Waistcoat, narrow black and
+yellow stripes. No cords, no silver buttons. Hum-m-m! With a
+black-and-yellow striped waistcoat and in a none too brilliantly lighted
+room--and a sickroom was not likely to be anything else unless the man
+was too much of an ass to keep up the illusion by attending to
+details--an ordinary suit of evening clothes would do the trick. And he
+wouldn't have a doctor and wouldn't see any outsiders, this Lord St.
+Ulmer, eh? Oh, well--you never know your luck, my lord; you never do!
+
+Mental processes are more rapid in the action than in the recording. Not
+ten seconds had passed from the time the footman ceased speaking when
+Cleek answered him.
+
+"Oh, well, if it's a case like that, and his lordship isn't likely to
+disturb me by wandering round his room in the night, I dare say I can
+risk the rest, as I'm a very sound sleeper. The room's on the second
+floor; that's the main thing," he said offhandedly. "So you may show me
+to it at once."
+
+"Very good, sir; this way if you please, sir," the footman replied, and
+forthwith led him to the room in question.
+
+It was one immediately adjoining that occupied by Lord St. Ulmer, but
+unfortunately, having no connection with it, the wall which divided the
+two was quite solid. Had there been a door---- But there was not. Cleek
+saw at a glance that matters were not to be simplified in that way;
+whoever might wish to see into that room must first _get_ into it: there
+was no other way.
+
+"All right, this will do; you may go," he said as soon as he was shown
+to the place he had chosen; and taking him at his word, the footman
+gently closed the door and disappeared. Cleek gave him but a minute or
+two to get below stairs, then slipped out on tiptoe and followed,
+getting out of the house unseen and running at all speed in the
+direction of the stables.
+
+At the angle of the wall he stopped suddenly, and began to whistle
+"Kathleen Mavourneen." He hadn't rounded off the third bar before the
+wall door clicked and swung open, and Dollops was beside him.
+
+"Kit bag--quick!" whispered Cleek. "Need an evening suit, and the chap
+who was going to lend me one went off and forgot all about it. Move
+sharp, I'm in a hurry."
+
+"Right ho!" said Dollops, and vanished like a blown-out light. In half a
+minute's time he was back again, and the kit bag with him.
+
+"Here you are, gov'ner. Shall I get out the evenin' clothes, and put the
+bag back under the hedge, or will you take it with you?"
+
+"I'll take it. There are other things I shall want. Where's Mr. Narkom?"
+
+"Gone back to town, sir--to the Yard. Want him?"
+
+"No, not yet; maybe not to-night at all. Nip off and get yourself
+something to eat and be back here by nine o'clock at the latest. I shall
+very likely need you. Cut along!" Then he caught up the kit bag, whisked
+away with it into the darkness, and five minutes later stood again in
+the room which he had so recently left.
+
+Accustomed to rapid dressing, he got into his evening clothes in less
+time than it would have taken most men to unpack and lay them out ready
+for use when required; and then, taking the half-burnt labels from his
+pocketbook, carried them to the light and studied them closely. None was
+so big as the one which he had first inspected nor bore so much printed
+matter; but fortunately one was a fragment of the exactly opposite side,
+so that by joining the two together he was able to make out the greater
+part of it.
+
+Clearly, then, the original label, making allowance for what had been
+totally destroyed by the flames, must have read:
+
+  JETANOLA
+
+  AN UNRIVALLED PREPARATION
+
+  FOR BOOTS, SHOES, AND ALL LEATHER
+
+  GOODS
+
+  MANUFACTURED SOLELY BY
+
+  FERDINAND LOVETSKI
+
+  63 ESSEX ROW
+
+  SOHO
+
+After all, the imaginative reporter had not been so far out when he
+figured those mysterious markings upon the dead man's shirt bosom to
+read "63 Essex Row," an address where one Ferdinand Lovetski once did
+manufacture a certain kind of blacking for boots, shoes, etc. Not that
+they really did stand for that, of course, or that this ingenious person
+had done anything more than work out as a solution to the riddle of the
+marks a name and an address that were eventually to come into the
+case--as they now had done--but in a totally different manner from what
+the author of the theory intended or supposed.
+
+Of two things Cleek was certain beyond all question of error. First:
+that the dead man was not Ferdinand Lovetski--not in any way connected
+with Ferdinand Lovetski to be precise; second: that the markings on the
+shirt were not made with "Jetanola" or any other kind of blacking; and
+ingenious as the theory was, he was willing to stake his life that those
+marks no more stood for 63 Essex Row than they did for 21 Park Lane. For
+one thing, what would be the sense of smearing them on the dead man's
+shirt bosom if they merely stood for that? It was all very well for that
+imaginative reporter to suggest that it was a sign given by the assassin
+to the whole anarchistical brotherhood that a debt of vengeance had been
+paid and a traitor punished; but the brotherhood did not need any such
+sign. If the man were Lovetski it would know of his death without any
+such silly nonsense as that. It knew the men it "marked," and it knew
+when those men died, and by whose hand, too; and it did not go about
+placarding its victims with clues to their identity or signs of whose
+hands had directed the exterminating blow.
+
+And Ferdinand Lovetski it never had "marked"--never had issued any
+death sentence against, never had sought to punish, never, indeed, had
+taken any interest in--for the simple reason that, as Cleek knew, the
+man had been in his grave these seven years past! He knew that beyond
+all question; for in those dark other times that lay behind him
+forever--in his old "Vanishing Cracksman" days, in those repented years
+when he and Margot had cast their lot together and he had been the
+chosen consort of the queen of the Apaches--in those wild times
+Lovetski, down on his luck, bankrupt through dissipation, a thief by
+nature, and a lazy vagabond at heart, had joined the Apaches and become
+one of them. Not for long, however. Within six months word had come to
+him of the death of a relative in his native Russia, and of a little
+property that was now his by right of inheritance; and he was for saying
+good-bye to his new colleagues and journeying on to Moscow to claim his
+little fortune. But the law of the Apaches is the law of the
+commonwealth, and Margot and her band had demanded the usual division.
+Lovetski had rebelled against it; he had sworn that he would not share;
+that what was his should remain his only as long as he lived and--it
+did. But five days later his knife-jagged body was fished out of the
+Seine and lay in the morgue awaiting identification; Margot went thrice
+to see it before it went into the trench with others that were set down
+in the records as unknown.
+
+That was seven years ago; and now here was Lord St. Ulmer, or some one
+in his room, burning labels that had to do with the days when that dead
+man was in honest business, and had lost it simply through dissipation
+after the police had discovered that 63 Essex Row was used in part as a
+meeting place for several "wanted" aliens, and had raided it and closed
+it up.
+
+Lovetski had never belonged to the brotherhood; he had never even known
+that they met under that roof until the time of the raid; but he had
+been arrested with every other inmate of the house, held as a suspect to
+await examination at the hands of a magistrate, and in the meantime his
+business had gone to the dogs. After that drink got him, and
+acquaintances made in the place of detention became associates and pals.
+It was only a step from that to the Apaches, and from the Apaches to the
+Seine and the trench; and the little fortune in Russia was never
+claimed.
+
+And now this Lord St. Ulmer was burning labels that once had been the
+property of that man, was he? And burning them at this particular
+period, of all others, when somebody, who evidently had some undesirable
+knowledge regarding him, had been mysteriously done to death and the
+Yard was out on the trail of the crime!
+
+What did that mean? How did Lord St. Ulmer come into possession of those
+labels? And having come into possession of them, why had he suddenly
+become anxious to get rid of them?
+
+What few paltry effects Lovetski had possessed when he joined the
+Apaches were left in the room he hired from old Marise--Madame Serpice's
+mother--at the inn of the "Twisted Arm." The Apaches had gone through
+them, and voted them not worth ten sous the lot--and very probably they
+were not. Still there might have been letters, and there might have been
+some unused labels; fellows of that sort would be apt to keep things of
+that kind merely to back up maudlin boasts of former standing. And if
+there had been, if this Lord St. Ulmer had come into possession of
+things that were left in the secret haunts of the Apaches---- Decidedly
+it would be an advantage to get a look at his lordship, and that, too,
+as expeditiously as possible.
+
+A footman's waistcoat--merely that. He had one, that he knew; but was it
+in the kit bag? He went over and reopened the bag, and examined its
+contents. Good old Dollops! What strokes of inspiration the chap
+sometimes had! There it was, the regulation thing--the stripes, perhaps,
+a trifle broader than those the General's servants wore, but quite near
+enough to pass muster with a stranger. Now, then, upon what pretext?
+How? When? Hullo! What was that? The dinner gong, by Jupiter!
+
+Certainly! The very thing. "Master wishes to know if there is any
+especial dish your lordship fancies, or shall I bring up just what cook
+has prepared?" That would do the trick to a turn; and he need be only
+four or five minutes late in going down to join his host and the ladies.
+
+He whisked off his coat, waistcoat, and necktie, and made the change in
+a twinkling. Another and more subtle "change"--yet made even
+quicker--altered his countenance so completely that not one trace of
+likeness to Mr. Philip Barch remained. A moment later he had passed
+swiftly out of the room and was tapping upon Lord St. Ulmer's door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+A BLUNDER AND A DISCOVERY
+
+
+Cleek's knuckles had no more than touched the panel before he became
+aware of a singular and most significant circumstance. A faint "snick"
+sounded upon the other side of the door, a quick, metallic "snick,"
+which his trained ears identified at once as the switching off of an
+electric light; and quick as he was in opening the door, it was an
+utterly black room he looked into. Still, that did not dismay him. He
+knew full well that the button controlling the switch must be near the
+bed for it to be so quickly reached; and Lord St. Ulmer was most
+certainly _in_ bed, as the creaking springs told him, and it was always
+within his power to make an awkward slip and, with every appearance of
+an accident, to switch the light on again.
+
+But for the present--as he had thoughtfully stepped in and closed the
+door behind him that he might not stand there in the full glow of the
+lights in the outer passage, seen, but himself unseeing--for the present
+he was in blackness as dark as ink and as thick as tar, as far as the
+eye was concerned; and through that blackness the sharp staccato of an
+excited man's voice was flinging a challenge at him.
+
+"Who are you? What do you want? What the devil do you mean by coming in
+here, unasked?" that voice rapped out with an unmistakable note of alarm
+in it.
+
+"Master sent me up, your lordship," replied Cleek in the bland, deeply
+deferential tones of the well-trained manservant. "He is anxious to know
+if your lordship would prefer some especial dish prepared for your
+lordship's dinner, or if----"
+
+He got no further than that, for the rasping, excited voice broke
+sharply in, and the violent jangling of the bed springs told that the
+speaker had as sharply turned over in bed.
+
+"Your master sent you up about my dinner?" the voice trumpeted out in a
+sort of panic. "Sent you about my _dinner_--and by that door?"
+
+Then came yet another sound--the jingle of a spoon or a fork against a
+plate or a cup--and hard after it a noise of rustling paper, and Cleek
+had just time to realize that he had blundered, that there must be
+another staircase and another door by which the servants came and went,
+and that, in all probability, judging from that telltale clink of metal
+and china, his lordship's dinner had already _been_ served, when he made
+another and a yet more embarrassing discovery: his lordship was not
+alone in the room. Some one was there with him, some one who simply gave
+an amazed exclamation without putting it into words, then moved swiftly,
+snicked on the light, and scattered all the darkness with one dazzling
+electric glare.
+
+In that sudden outburst of light Cleek saw a bed and a man on it, a man
+who had turned over, so that his face was to the opposite wall, while an
+open newspaper--one of many--almost covered his head. Beside that bed
+there was a table and a salver loaded with many dishes, and beyond that
+an open door, and beyond that again a gaping passage and the head of a
+staircase that led up from below.
+
+And between the table and the door he saw something more startling and
+dismaying than all the rest.
+
+With his hand on the switch that controlled the electric light, his head
+bent forward, and his small, ferret eyes brightly gleaming, Mr. Harry
+Raynor stood looking him in the face.
+
+"Hullo! I say, who the devil are you?" snarled that startled and amazed
+young man. "What's your game? What are you up to? You're no servant in
+this house, dash you! You can't fool _me_ on that point, b'gad! What are
+you doing here? What are you up to? What's your little dodge, eh?"
+
+For the present Cleek's "little dodge" was to get out of that room as
+expeditiously as possible. For here was an emergency which could not be
+adequately met by mental finesse; a situation which could result only in
+exposure and the complete undoing of all his plans if he made any
+attempt to bolster up his claim to being one of the servants in this
+house, or stopped to be "interviewed" by young Raynor; and being never
+slow to make up his mind or to act, he did both now with amazing
+celerity.
+
+Without one word of reply to young Raynor's challenge, indeed without
+one second's hesitation, he backed out of the door by which he had just
+entered, shut it sharply after him, snicked out the electric light in
+the passage, and dodged back into his own room with the fleet
+soundlessness of a hunted hare, shutting and bolting himself in with no
+more noise than a cat would have made in getting over a garden wall.
+
+In a twinkling, young Raynor, although taken somewhat aback by this
+unexpected action, was out after him, being obliged, of course, to stop
+for a second and turn on the extinguished light before he could see in
+which direction this pseudoservant had gone, much less follow him; but
+by the time he had done this Cleek was safely out of sight, and was
+engaged in tearing off his evening clothes and bundling them back into
+the kit bag as fast as his hands could fly.
+
+The turning on of the light had resulted in the discovery that the
+passage was empty, and in a moment there was an uproar. For no sooner
+had Raynor voiced one astonished "Good Lord! why, the fellow's
+gone--gone as clean as a whistle, blow him!" than Lord St. Ulmer began
+to rattle out an absolute fusillade of excited cries and frightened
+queries and suggestions, all snarled up in one hopeless tangle of
+jumbled words, and to tug with all his force at the bell rope hanging
+beside his bed.
+
+"Head him off! Have him stopped! Find out who he is and what he's up
+to!" he shrilled out in an excited treble, which was audible to Cleek,
+even through the thickness of the dividing wall. "Send for your father.
+Call up the servants. I want to know who that man is and what he was
+doing here."
+
+If that were possible, he had certainly gone the surest and the shortest
+way about accomplishing what he desired, for the wild pulling of the
+bell rope had brought the servants flocking up by one staircase and the
+General and a couple of footmen dashing up by another; and for the next
+twenty seconds, what with young Raynor trying to give his version of the
+affair and his lordship excitedly flinging out his, there was confusion
+and hubbub enough in all conscience. Nobody had any light to shed on the
+mysterious occurrence, however; nobody had seen any man coming down any
+staircase, and nobody had the very slightest idea who that particular
+one could be, whence or why he had come, nor whither and how he could
+have gone.
+
+It was in the midst of this confusion that suddenly the door of the room
+immediately adjoining his lordship's bedchamber was drawn sharply
+inward, and then as sharply reclosed until it left but a half foot or so
+between itself and the casing, and through that half foot of space the
+head of Mr. Philip Barch was thrust; not, however, before the General
+and his son and the two footmen had had a chance to see that the owner
+of that head was arrayed simply in his underclothing, and to understand
+why he had partly reclosed the door when he found people in the
+immediate neighbourhood of it.
+
+Apparently Mr. Barch was in a state of violent excitement and did not at
+once notice the presence of the General or his son.
+
+"I say, dash it all! what's up? What are you bounders kicking up all
+this noise about? And why on earth hasn't one of you answered my ring?"
+he blurted out, addressing the nearer of the two footmen. "I've pulled
+that dashed bell rope until I'm tired. I say, nip downstairs, one of
+you, and tell that valet chap to bring back my clothes, and not to
+bother about brushing them until after I go to bed. Mr. Harry promised
+to lend me a suit of evenin' togs, but went off without doing so, blow
+him! And I haven't a blessed livin' stitch to put on!"
+
+"Good Lud, Barch! I do beg a thousand pardons, old chap!" exclaimed the
+General's hopeful. "Sorry I forgot about the evenin' togs, dear boy.
+What a beast of a hole you'd have been in if I hadn't come back. Eh,
+what?"
+
+"Well, if it could be any worse than the one I've been in for the past
+five minutes it would be a marvel, dear boy," responded Cleek, with
+lamblike innocence. "Always was a thoughtless beggar, don't you know.
+Took off my blessed clothes, and let your valet toddle off with 'em to
+brush 'em, as he suggested, before I once thought about the evenin' ones
+you'd promised to lend me."
+
+"Harry's valet?" It was the General who spoke. "Do I understand you to
+say, Mr. Barch, that you gave your clothes to somebody whom you took for
+my son's valet? In the name of reason, where did you get that impression
+of the man? I ask, because Harry has no special valet. Hawkins,
+here"--indicating the second footman--"valets both my son and myself;
+but having only me to look after this evening, as we did not expect
+Harry to return in time for dinner, he has been in attendance upon me up
+to the present moment, so it most certainly could not have been he."
+
+"Oh, no; chap wasn't a bit like him, General. Wasn't like the other
+footman, either. Tallish chap, fair-haired, little turned-up 'ginger'
+moustache. Was dressed in evening clothes and wore a black-and-yellow
+striped waistcoat."
+
+"That's the man! That's the man!" trumpeted forth Harry Raynor and Lord
+St. Ulmer in concert, the latter's excited voice ringing out from the
+room into which, unfortunately, Cleek could not, of course, see. "That's
+the identical fellow, pater; Barch has described him to a hair," went on
+young Raynor, addressing his father. "Sneak thief--that was his little
+game, St. Ulmer. Nicked my friend Barch's clothes and would have nicked
+yours, too, if he hadn't come a cropper. Got down the staircase there,
+and dodged into one of the empty rooms, I'll lay my life, pater, and as
+soon as you came up and left the coast clear, slipped out of the house
+and got away."
+
+In the game of life chance is an important factor; and chance, as much
+as anything else, favoured Cleek in this particular instance, for it was
+his especial aim to lull Lord St. Ulmer's suspicions of the mysterious
+"man" and to quiet any fear he might possess of that man's possible
+connection with the police. It need scarcely be recorded, therefore,
+that he hastened to second Harry Raynor's suggestion relative to the
+intruder being nothing more nor less than a sneak thief, who had taken
+precisely the mode mentioned of making his escape, and backed it up with
+a panicky sort of appeal to the General to "have the house searched and
+all the empty rooms below stairs looked into on the off-chance that the
+fellow hadn't really got away as yet."
+
+The suggestion was acted upon forthwith. Every vacant room was searched,
+and it was in this matter that chance favoured Cleek so signally, for it
+was found that a window in one of the lower rooms had been left wide
+open, and as that window communicated with a veranda, from which a short
+flight of steps led down to the garden at a point where the walk was
+asphalted and could not be expected to retain a footprint, there would
+seem to be no question of where and how the man had made his escape.
+
+Dinner, owing to this interruption, together with the unexpected return
+of Mr. Harry and the awkward position in which Philip Barch had been
+placed, was put back for half an hour; and Cleek, left to himself,
+proceeded to dress himself in the clothes with which young Raynor had
+supplied him. But for all his cleverness in turning suspicion into
+another channel, he was not best pleased with the result of the
+adventure, for he was faced with the fact that he had failed to
+accomplish what he had set out to do, and that his efforts concerning
+Lord St. Ulmer had been absolutely barren of results. He had _not_
+succeeded in seeing his lordship's face, he had _not_ succeeded in
+discovering how this man, of all men, should have come into possession
+of the Jetanola labels, or, indeed, _anything_ that had belonged to
+Ferdinand Lovetski. Ferdinand Lovetski had been done to death in Paris
+only seven years ago, and his lordship had been--or was said to have
+been--more than twice that number of years in Argentina.
+
+Then there was another point: What had called Harry Raynor away so
+unexpectedly, and what had so unexpectedly called him back? What was he
+doing in Lord St. Ulmer's room this evening? Was his being there merely
+a commonplace thing, or was there something between them? More than
+that, what was the connection between young Raynor and Margot? How came
+she to be writing letters to him, sending her photograph to him? And
+what was the explanation of the scrap of pink gauze that was hidden with
+the other things in the filled tobacco jar? The scrap of gauze which had
+been caught by the nail head in the passage at Gleer Cottage was pink,
+the same shade of pink he believed as Raynor's fragment, and neither was
+anything like Ailsa Lorne's frock. True, there was no stitchery of
+rose-coloured silk upon that fragment Raynor had kept hidden in the
+tobacco jar, but that didn't prove that there was none upon the frock
+from which it came. It might have been torn from a part that was devoid
+of stitchery; and, again, it might not be part of the frock at all. It
+might be part of a gauze scarf that was worn with the dress. Women do
+wear things like that with evening gowns.
+
+Hum-m-m! Now if the dress which Margot wore was found in time to have
+rose-coloured stitchery, and the pattern of that stitchery matched the
+pattern on the piece found in Gleer Cottage---- Yes, but what would take
+Margot to Gleer Cottage? Certainly it would be to meet a man; but what
+man? De Louvisan? But if he had been an Apache and a traitor, he would
+have been on his guard, and would make no appointment with her or with
+any of her followers.
+
+Then what other man? Lord St. Ulmer, who, on the evidence of his muddy
+boots, had been out _somewhere_ last night, or the fellow--whoever he
+might prove to be--who had killed the Common keeper and had hidden the
+clothing in the General's famous ruin? For, according to that
+unfortunate Common keeper, there had been two persons implicated in the
+attack upon him. What two? Margot would not fit in with any theory that
+implicated Sir Philip Clavering--it would be preposterous to suggest
+such a thing--nor did it really seem feasible to connect her with St.
+Ulmer either but for the fact of those labels and his own knowledge
+that Lovetski had once been a member of the Apaches.
+
+Perplexed with these thoughts, Cleek was almost startled at the sound of
+the second dinner gong, and he walked swiftly to the glass to note the
+effect of his borrowed plumes. They were certainly not a good fit, and
+he passed his hand over the wrinkled breast; then--his fingers stopped
+suddenly at the touch of something hard in the pocket. Slowly, his lips
+drawn to a soundless whistle, he pulled out a round metal object and
+looked at it with startled eyes, his thoughts in a sudden conflicting
+whirl.
+
+Last night, when he had found the golden capsule with the name of
+Katharine upon it, and had given Mr. Narkom a brief history of the
+famous _Huile Violette_ and the methods of the _grande dames_ of old, he
+had declared that he knew of but one woman who ever had worn one of
+those antique scent bracelets, and knew of _her_ wearing it simply
+because he himself had stolen it from a famous collection and given it
+to her. To-night that identical bracelet, with the scent globe and the
+stopper cut from an emerald, was in his hand again! Margot's bracelet in
+the pocket of Harry Raynor's coat! And only a moment or two ago he had
+asked himself, "Which man?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+SPRINGING A SURPRISE
+
+
+The circumstance was something of a shock to him. Up to this moment he
+had looked upon young Raynor as being merely a selfish, irresponsible
+wastrel, not as something vicious, something that had the courage or
+even the power to bite or to sting. Now, however---- He turned the
+bracelet over in his hand and examined it closely, to be certain before
+he finally decided that it really was Margot's.
+
+The act served merely to deepen suspicion into certainty. By a dozen
+things he knew it for what he hoped it might not be. It was Margot's
+bracelet, beyond all possible question it was! So, then, he had been a
+fool for his pains, had he--a fool taken in and gulled by appearances,
+eh? And the creature he had fancied a mere worm was, after all, a
+serpent and--dangerous!
+
+Margot's bracelet in the pocket of Harry Raynor's evening coat was
+something rather more significant than Margot's picture and Margot's
+letters in Harry Raynor's tobacco jar, for an evening coat consorted
+well with an evening frock, and some woman who was not Ailsa Lorne, nor
+yet Lady Katharine Fordham, had worn an evening frock at Gleer Cottage
+last night.
+
+Where was Harry Raynor last night? That, too, would want looking into in
+the light of present events. And possessing two evening suits, which had
+that interesting young gentleman worn yesterday? This one, which he had
+lent to Cleek, or the one he would himself wear at dinner to-night? A
+great deal would depend upon that point--as great a deal as sometimes
+sends men to the gallows. For whensoever he had last worn this suit,
+this bracelet was put in the pocket of it. Upon that point there could
+be no shadow of doubt; for although he had forgotten all about the
+thing--as evidenced by his leaving it in the pocket when sending the
+clothes to Cleek--he could not possibly have put this coat on again
+without noticing how abominably the thing sat upon the wearer, and
+discovering the cause of it.
+
+And if he had worn this particular suit last night, and Margot could be
+proved to have visited Gleer Cottage at, or about, the time of the
+murder----Cleek shut off that train of thought, and puckered up his lips
+until they were white and full of creases, and sighed inwardly, thinking
+of the loving mother and of the added cross for the shoulders of the
+bitterly disappointed father, a man and a hero, a soldier and a
+gentleman, cursed with such offspring as this!
+
+"And the little beast would sacrifice the pair of them for the price of
+a night's orgy, and turn suspicion even against his mother to save his
+own skin if he were in danger," was his unspoken summing up of Harry
+Raynor's character. "Gad, how little there is in heredity, after all,
+when we so often see eagles breeding jackdaws and lions bringing forth
+mice!"
+
+The dinner gong sounded again; and it was only then that he realized how
+long a time he had spent mooning over a stolen bracelet and a gnat that
+seemed suddenly to have grown into a bird of prey.
+
+He turned round on his heel and switched off the light. "A bombshell for
+_you_, my laddie!" he said in the soundless words of thought, as he put
+the bracelet into the tail pocket of his coat and nodded as if young
+Raynor were there in person to be addressed; then he walked out and shut
+the door behind him, and went down to the business of dining.
+
+He found the General and his son and Mrs. Raynor and Ailsa awaiting him
+in the drawing-room, and was not--considering what he now knew--at all
+surprised to learn that Lady Katharine had developed a bad headache,
+gone to bed, and wished no dinner at all.
+
+"I can't think what's come over her," said Ailsa when she made this
+announcement.
+
+"Oh, can't you?" said young Raynor with a cackling laugh. "Lord! women
+don't look far beneath the surface of things, do they, Barch? Who
+wouldn't go to bed with a headache after a visit from a goat like Geoff
+Clavering?"
+
+"Harry, dearest, do think what you are saying, and before whom,
+darling!" bleated apologetically his adoring mother. "You mustn't mind
+him, Mr. Barch; he _is so_ full of spirit, the dear boy."
+
+Cleek did not reply, neither did the General. Possibly both were
+secretly battling with a desire to catch hold of this young man and to
+kick him as far as the human foot could propel him; and it was, no
+doubt, a relief to all when the two footmen swung open the great double
+doors leading into the dining-room and announced gravely that dinner was
+served.
+
+With the matter of that dinner it is doubtful if anybody but Cleek
+really enjoyed the hour spent in consuming it, and even he merely
+because the girl of his heart was beside him, and _that_ would make a
+heaven with any healthy and well-conditioned man in the universe. But it
+was certain that nobody was deeply regretful when the end came, and Mrs.
+Raynor, rising, gave the hint to Miss Lorne that it was time to return
+to the drawing-room and to leave the gentlemen to their half hour with
+the coffee, the liqueurs, and the cigars. But to-night the General would
+have none of these.
+
+"Young men to young men's pleasure, gentlemen. I'm an old fogy, and I'm
+sleepy," he said immediately after the ladies had retired. "Besides, my
+monthly copy of the _Gardener and Fruit Grower_ arrived this evening,
+and I haven't looked at it yet. So, if you will excuse me, Mr.
+Barch----"
+
+"My dear General, pray make no apologies," said Cleek, struggling
+between the necessity for keeping up his rakish attitude and the desire
+to be a man in the eyes of this rugged old soldier, who was fighting a
+braver battle now than he had ever fought in the days when king and
+country called him. "If a man may not consider his personal convenience
+in his own house, what's the good of saying that an Englishman's home is
+his castle?"
+
+"Ah, we outlive old notions, Mr. Barch, we outlive them!" replied the
+General with a kindly smile and something that was like a smothered
+sigh. "Pray make yourself thoroughly at home, however. I hear from Harry
+that you have decided to honour us with a week's visit, and I am very
+greatly pleased. Hawkins, in the absence of Johnston, see that the
+gentlemen want for nothing."
+
+"Very good, sir. Serve your coffee in your study, sir?"
+
+"No, I shan't take any. See that I'm not disturbed; and don't bother to
+valet me to-night; I shall be reading late. Good-night, Harry;
+good-night, Mr. Barch." And with that he walked out of the room and left
+them.
+
+"Now, then, Hawkins," said young Raynor as soon as his father was fairly
+out of sight and sound, "set the decanters and the glasses on the table
+here, and you and Hamer clear off about your business as fast as you can
+toddle. We don't need you. Hook it!"
+
+"Very good, sir," replied Hawkins deferentially, and obeyed the order to
+the letter.
+
+Harry Raynor waited a moment to give both time to leave the room and to
+get beyond earshot, then caught up a decanter, drew a glass toward him,
+and poured out a stiff peg of brandy.
+
+"I say, Barch, I've got a flea to put into your ear," he said earnestly,
+"and I didn't want those blighters hanging round to hear it; that's the
+reason I packed them off as I did. I'm going to give you a shock that
+will set you thinking."
+
+"Are you?" said Cleek with the utmost serenity. "Well, I'm going to give
+_you_ one, too, dear boy; and as first horse at the post wins--I say,
+what price this little caper? How did you come by this, dear boy--and
+when?"
+
+He dipped round and down into his coat-tail pocket, as he spoke, pulled
+out the scent bracelet, and laid it on the table before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+PICKING UP THREADS
+
+
+Young Raynor was not in the smallest degree upset at sight of the thing.
+He was mildly surprised, and expressed it by a low, soft whistle as he
+reached out his hand and took up the bracelet.
+
+"Well, of all the mutton heads! Shows what a thoughtless beggar I am!"
+he said with a slight lurch of the shoulders and an impatient twitch of
+the head. "No need to ask you how you came by the blessed thing, dear
+boy. Found it in the inside pocket of that coat you're wearing, I know.
+That's where I put the bally thing, I recollect. What an ass of me to
+forget all about it. Hope she won't think I've bagged it."
+
+"She?" said Cleek, with admirable composure, considering that this open
+admission, this evidence of there being nothing to conceal, threatened
+to upset all his calculations. "Antecedent of that personal pronoun,
+please; who may the 'she' in question be?"
+
+"Why, Mignon, of course."
+
+"Mignon?"
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle Mignon De Varville, the famous Whirlwind Dancer of
+the Paris Variétés. _You_ know her, or ought to, considering that you
+got a peep at her phiz in spite of me this afternoon."
+
+"Not 'Pink Gauze'? The lady of the tobacco jar?"
+
+"The very identical. Little bit of all right, that--eh, what?"
+
+"Looked like it, at all events," said Cleek, selecting a cigar and
+lighting up. "What a lucky beggar you are, dear chap--all the good
+things seem to go your way. And so"--puff! puff!--"Pink Gauze gave you
+the bracelet, eh? When? Last night? Or didn't you see her then?"
+
+"Oh, I saw her last night, right enough; in fact, I've seen her pretty
+nearly every night since she came over from Paris, but she didn't give
+me the bracelet to take care of _then_. _That_ was on the night
+before--over at her little place, you know."
+
+"No, I'm blest if I do. How should I? Never saw or heard of her, dear
+boy, till I had the misfortune to break that tobacco jar and tumble out
+her photo. So her name's Mignon de Varville, is it? And she's got a
+little place of her own, eh? Where? In this neighbourhood?"
+
+"Lord, no! Beyond Wimbledon. Rippin' little place, too. Clinkin' little
+house standing in its own grounds and fitted up to the nines. Took it
+furnished, and gives the rippin'est suppers and the jolliest dances
+going. Hot stuff, I give you _my_ word. Brought over her entire troupe
+with her. Rehearsing now, and with all their evenings to themselves.
+Going to open in London in a fortnight's time, she says, and no English
+hotels for _her_ and her little lot. There are ten of 'em: five spiffin'
+pretty girls, and five of the most awful-lookin' Johnnies you ever saw
+in evening clothes since the hour you were christened. Coarse as dog's
+hair, every mother's son of 'em, but clinkin' good chaps, for all that.
+Plenty of champagne, and jolly good champagne it is, too, dear boy; and
+after supper there's always a dance, two of the chaps and two of the
+girls sitting out and furnishing the music. And Lord, you don't know
+what a dance is, Barch, till you've had one with Mignon de Varville, my
+boy!"
+
+Cleek did not dispute the assertion. He had had many with the lady in
+those old days that lay forever behind; and it needed no man's word to
+tell him how tirelessly, how joyously, and with what mad _abandon_
+Margot could dance when the fever of music and wine got into her blood.
+
+"My hat! I'll be choking you from sheer jealousy, presently, you lucky
+beggar!" he said enviously. "All the plums seem to fall over on _your_
+side of the wall, dash you! and here am I sitting solitary and alone in
+a howling wilderness with not even _one_. I say, how the dickens did you
+ever come across this French lot? Blest if I can seem to meet with
+_any_--French, English, or any other sort, dash it! Where did you meet
+the charming Mignon? In Paris?"
+
+"No fear! You can fall in with anything going in London if you only
+know the ropes, dear boy, and are popular. Flossie Twinkletoes
+introduced me to her. She'd just come over from Paris, and Flossie was
+out of work through the failure of 'The Seaside Girl,' and asked me to
+take her to supper and meet a friend of hers. I did--and the friend was
+Mignon. After that--well, you know how it is, dear boy. When a fellow
+knows his way about women _will_ run after him. Mignon and I took to
+each other from the first, and we've been jolly good pals ever since.
+Invited me to her place before we'd known each other half an hour. Fact,
+dear boy. And she's rather exclusive, too, I can tell you. Just _how_
+exclusive you may guess when I tell you that I'm the only living man
+outside of those who belong to her troupe that ever sees the inside of
+her house or shares one of those rippin' evenings there."
+
+The curious one-sided smile travelled up Cleek's cheek, hovered there a
+moment, and then disappeared. He said nothing upon the subject, but it
+was perfectly clear to him just _why_ Mr. Harry Raynor was the only
+stranger present. He knew Margot and he knew her methods. This one man
+was desirable because she had an especial use for him; and he meant to
+make it his business to find out just what that especial use might be.
+So, then, she had abandoned her customary tactics for once, and had
+brought some of the female members of her crew to England with her, had
+she?
+
+The murder of De Louvisan looked more than ever like an Apache crime,
+in the light of these things. But _why_ an Apache crime? Margot's game
+was always money; and the pseudo Count de Louvisan had not a shilling to
+bless himself with. Again, if it were an Apache crime, how came a man
+who was undeniably Lord St. Ulmer--undeniably everything that he
+claimed--to be mixed up in the affair to such an extent as he was? And
+what of Lady Clavering? Where did she come in? What had taken her out
+upon the Common last night? What of young Geoff? What of his father? And
+what, of all things, about Lady Katharine Fordham?
+
+None of these people could be connected with Margot--with the Apaches.
+He had his own ideas relative to Lady Katharine's part in the puzzle,
+but there was still that bundle of buried clothing, still the fact that
+it was found in the grounds of Wuthering Grange, and that it was highly
+improbable either Margot or any of her crew could have put it there.
+Still, Margot had a purpose in "catching" Mr. Harry Raynor; and if----
+Ah, well, you never can tell. Shallow-looking pools are sometimes very
+deep. Which, then, _was_ Mr. Harry Raynor: the brainless fool he
+appeared, or a very excellent actor playing a very cunning part?
+
+During the moment it had taken for these thoughts to travel through his
+mind, Cleek's whole attention seemed to be claimed by his cigar, which,
+for some unknown reason, appeared to have an objection to draw. Now,
+however, he flung the thing aside.
+
+"Pardon me, dear boy, if I have seemed inattentive," he said. "Please go
+on. What was it you were saying? Oh, ah! I recollect: about your being
+the only guest that Mademoiselle What's-her-name ever asks to her
+blessed kick-ups. Lay you a tanner I can tell you why, old chap."
+
+"Can you? Then why?"
+
+"Either she's clean gone on you--which, no doubt, is very likely--or
+she's trying to get something out of you. Ever give you what our Yankee
+cousins call the touch? Ever try to get anything out of you?"
+
+"Not a blessed rap. Never wanted _anything_ from me. That is, anything
+in the money line, I mean. Hinted pretty strongly at something else,
+however; but, of course, I wasn't taking any on that score!"
+
+"Weren't you? Why not?"
+
+"Don't be an ass, Barchie! You've seen the pater and mater, and you can
+judge for yourself just how impossible it would be to even hint at
+having a girl like Mignon asked over here to dinner one night just
+simply because she has, as she says, an intense yearning to see how
+people of the better class in England live and conduct themselves in
+their own homes."
+
+Cleek reached for another cigar and lit it. Oho! so that was how the cat
+jumped, was it? That was Margot's little game, eh? She had taken up with
+this engaging young man merely for the purpose of getting an entrée to
+Wuthering Grange. Clearly, then, there must be something or some one
+under the roof of this house that she desired to get in contact with;
+and having failed to get _invited_, as she had hoped----Yes, of course!
+Cunning of her, diabolically cunning. Forgotten all about the bracelet,
+eh? Not she! He knew her like a book. It would be an excuse to come over
+in person to ask for its return. "So sorry; but called away suddenly,
+and couldn't possibly wait for you to bring it back." That sort of
+thing, and--well, there you are. Ah, she was the very embodiment of
+craft and cunning, that lady: cut her off at one door and she would make
+her way round to the other.
+
+"Wasn't aware that it was anything of that sort, dear chap, or I
+shouldn't have asked," said Cleek, responding with the utmost serenity
+to young Raynor's remark. "Of course you couldn't do anything of that
+sort, so it was deuced wise of you to ignore the hint. Rum what fancies
+women of that sort have, eh? And how blessed crafty they are in getting
+what they want! You look out, dear boy, that she doesn't come over here
+after that bracelet. Lay you a sov that's why she got you to take charge
+of it."
+
+"Lay you another it isn't," replied the young man, with a smile of
+confidence. "You don't know the facts, dear boy, or you wouldn't jump to
+such silly conclusions. She gave it to me because the blessed thing
+would keep coming undone and falling off and interfering with our
+waltzing. Besides, it wasn't she--it was I--that suggested that I should
+put it in my pocket for safe keeping until the dancing was over; and,
+like a blithering idiot, you see, I forgot all about it. Blessed lucky
+thing for me that I had to lend you a suit of evening clothes, b'gad, or
+I might not have found the bracelet for heaven knows how long."
+
+"And a blessed lucky thing for me that you turned up in time to lend it
+to me," said Cleek, in reply. "Never was in such a beastly funk in all
+my life, dear chap. Could have said a prayer, if I knew any, I was so
+blessed glad when I looked out and saw you standing in the passage. I
+say, how did you come to be there, Raynor? Thought you were heaven knows
+how far away, and blest if I can think where you came from."
+
+"Popped out of St. Ulmer's room. Next one to yours. Was in there when
+that sneak thief appeared."
+
+"In there? My hat! What a rum idea! Thought you didn't care for the old
+josser. At least, you spoke as though you didn't this afternoon; and to
+have you sitting in there and kow-towing to a gouty old sick man----"
+
+"Wasn't sitting in there, dear boy. Had just popped in on my way up to
+dress. Evening papers full of that business at Gleer Cottage last night.
+Bought several of them at the railway station. Happened to think that,
+maybe, the old bounder hadn't read the news and would be interested in
+it, so just dropped in to give them to him. That was all."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Cleek. "That accounts for it, of course. Wondered how
+the dickens you came to be there, and what on earth had called you back
+home so early after you'd told me not to expect you until twelve. By the
+way, dear boy, what did call you back, if it isn't an impertinence to
+ask. Needn't bother to reply if you'd rather not." This latter, for the
+reason that at the mention of his coming back earlier than expected,
+young Raynor's lips had come together in a sharp, hard, narrow line, and
+his eyes had assumed an absolutely savage expression. "Sorry if I've
+poked my nose in where I'm not wanted, old chap, deuced sorry."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Raynor, reaching for the decanter and
+pouring out a fresh peg of brandy. "Don't bother about treading on _my_
+corns. Of course I'm a bit sore on the subject, but--well, I like you,
+Barch; I like you no end. Besides, I was going to tell you, anyhow.
+Remember, don't you, that I said I was going to give you a shock?"
+
+"Oh, ah! Yes. Blest if I hadn't forgotten. And I thought I was going to
+give you one, too, about the bracelet; but it didn't come off. Maybe
+yours won't either, dear boy."
+
+"Oh, don't you make any mistake upon that score. Lay you a fiver it
+makes you sit up when I spring it on you. Shove that siphon over this
+way, will you, dear boy? Thanks, very much. I say, Barch--chin'-chin',
+old chap!-- I say, you want to know what sent me back so unexpectedly,
+do you, eh? Well, you may."
+
+"May I? Thanks. Then what did?"
+
+"Same thing that called me away in the first place--a blessed swindle!"
+
+"The dickens you say? What sort of a swindle, old chap, eh?"
+
+"A forged letter. Somebody wanted to get me away from this house for
+some purpose or another, and to _keep_ me away until late to-night, too.
+I don't know why, and I don't know what for, but I'm jolly well certain
+who the party is, b 'gad; and it's a howlin' eye-opener, I give you _my_
+word! Wait a bit!"
+
+He got up suddenly, walked to the door, opened it a foot or so, peeped
+out, then reclosed it and walked back to his seat. He poured out a third
+brandy, and drank it almost neat this time, then put his elbows upon the
+table, and, leaning forward, looked straight into Cleek's eyes.
+
+"Barch, I've discovered something," he said in a lowered voice. "My
+father's playing a double game. He's a damned old two-faced hypocrite,
+that's what, and I've found him out at last!"
+
+The cigar dropped suddenly from Cleek's fingers, and he ducked down in
+quest of it. He simply _had_ to have some excuse to cover up the state
+of his feelings, or they would have got the better of him. A while ago
+he had said to himself that the fellow was despicable enough to
+implicate his own parents if it were necessary to save his skin; but
+even then he had only half believed it; now, however, he knew, and a
+fierce indignation bit into the very soul of him.
+
+The worm had suddenly developed into a viper.
+
+He went on groping for the dropped cigar. He might have found it at once
+had he chosen to do so, but he did not. It needed a moment or two to
+whip his savage desires into subjugation, to get himself well in hand
+again that he might face this unnatural son without giving way to the
+temptation to thrash him; and all the while his head was whirling with
+the crushing recollections that were crowding into it.
+
+If it were worth his while--to save his own skin, to divert suspicion
+from himself---- Well, was it not worth his while now? The chase was
+narrowing, and perhaps he knew it--one could not be certain what such a
+man _would_ find means of discovering. Perhaps he knew of the unearthing
+of the buried clothing. Perhaps he knew that there was proof the
+murderer had been traced to Wuthering Grange, and knowing, realized the
+necessity for diverting suspicion from himself, if he were guilty? But,
+guilty or innocent, principal or accessory, this one thing was certain:
+last night a murder had been committed; last night a dead man had been
+spiked to the wall in true Apache fashion; and this Mr. Harry Raynor,
+who was casting slurs upon his own father, was hand and glove with the
+Apache queen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+"HOW SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH"
+
+
+Cleek found his cigar at last, and rose with it in his hand, leaving
+young Barch to finish his story in his own inimitable way.
+
+"Yes," he continued, "what I call a regular facer for me. I was swindled
+into going away by a forged letter, which I swear he wrote himself.
+Recollect, don't you, that when you came to meet me at the ruin, I told
+you I'd suddenly been called away? Well, so I had. While I was waiting
+there at the ruin for you to get shot of that muff Geoff Clavering and
+come to join me, up walks the pater and hands me a letter--a typewritten
+letter, mark you--with word that a messenger had just brought it. Now
+listen to this closely, Barch! Last January some fool of an editor
+suggested to my pater that he should write a series of articles upon the
+proper cultivation of hot-house fruits for his tomfool paper, and said
+that typewritten copy was absolutely necessary. Out goes the pater and
+buys a typewriter, and engages a girl to operate it. Got her from some
+typewriting school in town, and a rippin' fine little girl she was, too!
+Name, Katie Walters. Pretty as a picture and lively as a cricket. Well,
+Katie and I became jolly good pals. Pater found it out, and then just
+what you might have expected happened. I got a lecture, and Katie got
+the sack and was packed off to town before I could get a private word
+with her. Now, the letter my father handed me this afternoon was
+supposed to come from that girl."
+
+"And didn't?"
+
+"No, it didn't. It asked me to run up to town and meet her just outside
+the typewriting school when the day's work was over. I went, but I
+didn't do exactly as I'd been asked. I suppose the party that wrote it
+hoped that I'd wait there until dark, and that when she didn't come out
+I'd come to the conclusion that I'd missed her, and, being in town,
+would probably go somewhere else and make a night of it, as I most
+likely should have done under ordinary circumstances. But I didn't feel
+like waiting round for that bally school to close; so as soon as I got
+there, I walked upstairs and asked to see her."
+
+"Humph! And she wasn't there?"
+
+"No, she wasn't. And what's more, she hadn't been there for weeks and
+weeks. Had got a position up in Scotland, and is going to be married to
+a bank clerk next month."
+
+"Oho!" said Cleek, "I see! I see!"
+
+He walked over to the other side of the room, where there was a huge
+potted azalea on an ebony pedestal. He had admired and he had examined
+that azalea earlier in the evening, so it was, perhaps, only natural
+that he should be attracted by it now. Still, for once in a way, it was
+not the blossoming beauty of the plant that lured him to it, much as
+flowers always had and always would appeal to him. He could see the
+trend of young Raynor's tale now, the dim, shadowy outline of the
+argument he was putting forth, the suspicion he was endeavouring to
+lead; and he was afraid that something in his face or his eyes might
+betray the true state of his feelings if he remained there in the bright
+light for the man to study him. The big azalea offered the refuge of
+shadow. He walked there and stood in the shade of it, and began idly
+poking at the earth in the huge pot.
+
+"Naturally, dear boy," he went on, "when you heard that you knew that
+you had been taken in."
+
+"So I did, on the instant," said young Raynor, tackling yet a fourth
+glass of brandy. "It was as plain as the nose on your face that somebody
+had tried to spoof me; somebody had an interest in sending me off to
+town on a wild-goose chase and getting me out of this neighbourhood
+to-night, and that that somebody hadn't reckoned upon my doing what I
+did, and didn't know about my having promised you to take you to see
+Mignon de Varville, when that blithering letter intervened. And speaking
+of that-- I say, Barchie, we'll go to-night, if you like--eh, what?"
+
+"Sorry, dear boy," said Cleek, whose intention was to get out on the
+Common to-night and test the truth of Geoff Clavering's story; "sorry,
+but I'm afraid we'll have to put that off until to-morrow. Thinking you
+weren't coming back in time, I arranged with the ladies for an evening
+of bridge; so, if you don't join us, you'll have to pay your respects to
+'Pink Gauze' to-night without me. And, by the way, how did you get that
+bit of pink gauze, old chap? Any particular significance attached to
+it?"
+
+"Lord, no! Bit of gauze scarf she wore the other night--always wears
+pink, by the way--caught in my watch chain. Tore in gettin' loose, and I
+kept the bit as a memento."
+
+"Ah, I see. Well, get on with the other subject; I'm immensely
+interested. As soon as you'd found out that Katie What's-her-name
+couldn't have written the letter, and that you'd been deceived by
+somebody, then what?"
+
+"Why, then I put back home by the first possible train. I had my
+suspicions--yes, rather--so I came back to prove them true."
+
+"And did you?"
+
+"Ah, didn't I? Nobody knew of my affair with Katie outside of my father,
+and my father has a typewriter ready to hand, and typewriters don't
+betray anybody's 'fist.' I went to the lodgekeeper. No messenger had
+passed him to-day. I went to Hawkins and Hamer. No messenger had brought
+any letter that they knew of to the house. I couldn't ask Johnston,
+because this is his evening off; but no doubt that when I do ask him
+he'll say the same. Well, now, you put all those things together, Barch,
+and see for yourself what they make. As nobody but my father knew
+anything about the girl, and nobody gave him a letter, and he has a
+typewriter ready to hand, why there you are. He wrote the letter, that's
+what. And if he wrote it to get me away and keep me away until late at
+night, why he's got a devilish good reason for it; and if he has got a
+reason for doing things at night that he doesn't want other people to
+know about and doesn't want his own son to discover, then he's playing a
+double game. And last, when a man sets himself up for a howling saint in
+the virtue line and yet plays a double game, why he's a rotter and a
+hypocrite, whether he's my father or not, and I'm not going to stand
+it." He nodded with drunken solemnity. "I'm going to have it out with
+him to-night, you'll see. Come with me if you like----"
+
+"Not I, old man, I've promised to join the ladies, see you later, eh?"
+said Cleek, and with a look of unseen contempt at the drink-sodden
+figure, he turned abruptly and left the youth to continue his potations
+at his own sweet will.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+WHEN TWO AND TWO MAKE FOUR
+
+
+It would not be overstating the case if one were to say that Cleek's
+mind was absolutely in a whirl when he closed the door of the
+dining-room behind him and stood alone in the brilliantly lighted hall;
+for, added to the loathing contempt he felt for the young reprobate he
+had just left, there was the knowledge that this new and unexpected
+development threatened to destroy the whole fabric of his theories in
+almost every particular.
+
+Not for one moment, heretofore, had he looked upon young Raynor as other
+than a shallow, empty-headed wastrel; a mere cuckoo hatched in an
+eagle's nest; a thing to be scorned, not dreaded; a mere mischievous
+atom that hadn't the courage to be a bird of prey, nor blood enough in
+its veins to be dangerous. Now, however---- God! what a riddle life is!
+You never know!
+
+The door that led out into the grounds of the Grange was but a rope's
+cast distant. He felt that he couldn't trust himself to go in and face
+the ladies just yet a while; that he must think over this new and
+staggering turn which events had taken: think over it for a time in the
+hush and darkness of the outer world; and, turning on his heel, went
+swiftly to the door and let himself out.
+
+By this time the night had closed in, the moon had risen, and the
+gardens were simply a shadowy place of dark and fragrant mystery, with
+here and there a silver arabesque on the earth where the moonlight
+shafted through the boughs of trees, and here and there a streak of
+yellower radiance where the windows of the house threw man-made light
+across the lawn and against the massed green of crowded leaves. Cleek
+took to the grass that his footsteps might not be heard, and there, in
+the darkest shadow of all the darkened land, walked up and down, up and
+down, with his lower lip pinched up between his thumb and forefinger,
+his brows knotted, and the elbow of one arm in the hand of the other: a
+quiet, slow-moving figure, as silent as the other soundless shades that
+were about it.
+
+So that was how the cat jumped, was it? Directing suspicion--not openly,
+not with any positive hint of _what_, but with deadly seriousness,
+considering that last night a man had been mysteriously murdered and the
+police were out for the assassin--directing suspicion against his own
+father, and at such an appallingly significant time.
+
+What a cur the fellow was! Even if his father could in any way have been
+implicated in the crime, by any means, upon any pretext, what a devil's
+act it was to lead the law into the right channel. But when there was
+not one solitary circumstance that pointed, when it was merely to save
+his own skin, merely to divert suspicion away from himself, what an act
+of unspeakable atrocity! Couldn't the fellow reason? Couldn't he see
+that the very thing he was doing to mislead justice was the one
+circumstance which directed its sword against himself? That the simple
+fact of his endeavouring to direct suspicion against one who was in no
+way implicated was absolute proof that he had a purpose in wishing it to
+be misdirected. And if he _had_ a purpose in doing that, the inference
+was so obvious that a child might read between the lines.
+
+Heigho! It was just another exemplification of the truth of the old
+adage that "when the wine's in the wit's out." If he'd let that brandy
+decanter alone, if he hadn't fuddled his reason and clogged his wretched
+brain with alcohol, he must have seen what an ass thing he was doing,
+and what a fool his loosened tongue was making of him.
+
+True, as yet there did not seem any just cause for connecting him with
+the murder of De Louvisan, any reason why he should have killed the man;
+any single purpose he might serve, any solitary thing he might gain by
+slaying him; but still---- Oh, well, you never know how deep a well is
+until you have reached the bottom of it. The thing had every appearance
+of being an Apache crime, and he was "in" with Margot--Margot, who
+played for money and money alone; so if---- Good God! the little reptile
+hadn't let her lead him into _that_ folly, had he? Hadn't let her lure
+him into taking the oath and enrolling himself a member of the Apache?
+
+If he had been mad enough to do that, if that were the explanation, why,
+then, all the rest was possible. The law of the Apache is the law of the
+commonwealth; and he would find that out, as Lovetski had found it
+out--too late. If St. Ulmer was in any way implicated, St. Ulmer's
+fortune would be _one_ stake. And if this brainless weakling should fall
+heir to his father's money, ho! there was the other "stake"; there the
+possible motive, there the first connecting link!
+
+Was that Margot's little game? Was that the way the idiot had been
+tricked into becoming an accomplice? Just so! let's put the jumbled bits
+together and see if they fit; let's sum up two and two and learn if they
+really do make four.
+
+First bit: De Louvisan with such a hold upon St. Ulmer that he can
+compel his lordship to cancel his daughter's engagement and force her to
+accept him as a fiancé. Quite so! Second bit: De Louvisan, without any
+rupture occurring between himself and St. Ulmer, suddenly murdered in
+cold blood. And not only murdered, but spiked up to the wall after the
+manner of Lanisterre and other traitors to the Apache. A clear proof
+that this De Louvisan himself was an Apache; and being a traitor to the
+cause---- Quite so! quite so! Prevented from marrying Lady Katharine,
+because that was not part of the agreement; because he was making an
+effort to obtain for himself and his own personal use a fortune which it
+was intended should come into the commonwealth. Hum-m-m! Those two
+pieces seem to fit together. Now for the next:
+
+If St. Ulmer, over whom this De Louvisan undoubtedly had a hold of some
+sort, bought that fellow's silence by promising him his daughter for a
+wife, then it is quite certain that he was acquiescing in his
+traitorship to the Apache and quite willing that the man should have
+Lady Katharine's dower for himself. That bit fits also. Now for another:
+if in doing that thing this De Louvisan merited the name of traitor, it
+must have been that he came between the Apache and the possession of the
+St. Ulmer fortune, and if the owner of that fortune had to make terms
+such as he did with the man, the inference is as plain as the nose on
+your face. In other words, St. Ulmer, too, had reason to dread the
+Apache, and there must, therefore, be some connection between him and
+Margot. Two and two--and it makes four exactly! St. Ulmer, then, is the
+game, St. Ulmer the pivot upon which the whole case revolves.
+
+Where, then, does young Raynor come in? Hum-m-m! Ah! Of course, of
+course. Very crafty, very crafty indeed. A beautiful woman could do
+anything in the world with such a worm as he. The stage-door Johnnie
+will be best caught by a chorus girl. Yes, yes, just so. Get one who is
+out of an engagement or in debt--anything that will make her willing
+and eager to accept a bribe. She will do the introducing; the rest you
+can do yourself. Easy enough with such an ass as that fellow. Lovely
+women and jolly chaps for companionship; a lonely house, music, dancing,
+champagne; a famous French variety star heels over head in love with
+him, letters, photographs, nights of revelry, and quarts of wine; and
+then--_voilŕ_, the fish is hooked!
+
+Sworn in, by heaven! sworn in in a drunken fit, to wake and find himself
+not only an Apache, but to have his vanity tickled, his empty head
+turned, and his love of being thought a regular ladies' man pampered to
+the full by being told that he is in reality the _king_ of the Apaches,
+and that hundreds and hundreds of just such jolly fellows and girls as
+he sees about him are willing and eager to do the little worm homage and
+to be ruled by him as though he were actually royal.
+
+It is an old, old game of yours, that, isn't it, Margot? So you have
+caught many a fool in your day, wiser fools than this one, and sillier,
+too, in their way, but none of them ever held his kingship beyond the
+space of a month; none at all but that bolder rascal, the Vanishing
+Cracksman.
+
+And this little maggot of a Harry Raynor is the latest dupe, eh? Hooked
+in a drunken moment, the silly gudgeon, hooked that you may get at St.
+Ulmer and--get even--with the chap called De Louvisan. It must have been
+a shock when you found what a cowardly cur the fellow is at heart.
+Still there must be an accomplice, and there must be a strong incentive
+to command the services of this one.
+
+How did you work it, then? How get him to assist in that thing, if he
+did assist? How lead him up to this abominable act regarding his own
+father? Yes! To be sure, to be sure. Help you and your crew to St.
+Ulmer's money and you'd help him to _his_: to be rid of a father who
+kept him upon a short allowance, who disapproved of all the things and
+all the people he cared for, and who treated him as though he were a
+little foolish boy instead of a great, noble, splendid man, who ought to
+be free to live like the king he was.
+
+Oh, it would be easy: just the mere turning of suspicion after the other
+thing was done. A letter would do that--a forged letter--and that would
+be prepared for him nicely. Oh, no, no! of course he wouldn't be hanged.
+Means would be provided to prevent that. He would be so deeply
+compromised, however, that there would be no possibility of his escaping
+but by death, and the means of bringing that about would be conveniently
+supplied him. A swift but painless poison; or, perhaps, a bottle of
+ether--something of the sort. No pain, no suffering, all over in a
+minute or two; then "darling Harry" would come into everything, and the
+clever little forged letter would explain everything away.
+
+Would it? Cleek's jaws clamped together as the thought came, Would it,
+indeed? Well, _he'd_ see that it wouldn't, then! If any one was to
+suffer it should be the guilty, not the innocent; they should never pull
+that game off to the end of time.
+
+The forged letter, eh? Ah, be sure that Harry Raynor would take means to
+preserve it and to have it handy against the time of need. And be sure,
+too, that Margot would instruct him with the utmost carefulness just how
+to act with regard to it, and just where to keep it in order to make
+everything appear natural and in accordance with what he was to tell to
+his friend, Mr. Barch, in order to set the ball rolling. Claimed to have
+received it this afternoon, didn't he? So, of course, it would be in the
+pocket of the coat he had worn at the time. Had to change into evening
+clothes for dinner, and was in evening clothes still. So, of course----
+
+The thought had no more than shaped itself in Cleek's mind before he put
+it into action. As swiftly and as soundlessly as he had left the house
+he now returned to it. But whereas he had gone out unsuspected and
+unseen, it now became manifest that he was not to be permitted to enjoy
+the same privilege in returning, for as he stepped into the hall he came
+face to face with Hawkins advancing from the direction of the servants'
+staircase.
+
+"Out for another ramble in quest of a new plot you see, Hawkins," he
+said gayly as he entered. "The woes of the novelist are many when plots
+come slowly. Where's Mr. Harry--upstairs or in the drawing-room with the
+ladies?"
+
+"Neither, Mr. Barch, sir. Still sitting in the dining-room. Just on my
+way there with a message. Shall I say that you will rejoin him there,
+sir?"
+
+"No, not at present, thanks. Just going upstairs to change my shoes--the
+grass is very damp. By the way, Hawkins, do you happen to know what time
+Mr. Harry got home last night? Your mistress was asking Miss Lorne
+earlier in the evening, and as he was with me until ten I shouldn't like
+to contradict anything he may have said, _you_ know, should she conclude
+to ask _me_. Know when he got back?"
+
+"No, sir, that I don't. All I can tell you is that he wasn't home at
+half-past twelve when I went to bed."
+
+Cleek made a mental tally. Wasn't home at half-past twelve; and it was
+at half-past eleven, according to Mr. Narkom, that the limousine arrived
+at the head of Mulberry Lane and the first cry of murder was heard.
+
+"Oh, all right," he said. "Don't worry him by mentioning that I asked.
+See him myself when I come down." Cleek then passed by and went up the
+stairs two steps at a time.
+
+He did not stop at the second floor, however, but went up still another
+flight, and then, stopping a moment to look about to see if anybody was
+watching and to lean over the bannisters and listen if anybody was
+following, went fleetly to Harry Raynor's den, passed in, and shut the
+door behind him.
+
+The place was quite black, but a touch of the electric button flooded it
+with light, and showed him at once what he had come to seek. On a chair
+close to the open bedroom door lay the clothes which young Raynor had
+worn this afternoon, neatly folded, just as Hamer had placed them after
+brushing and pressing, in case the young man should, by any chance,
+elect to wear the same suit to-morrow.
+
+Cleek moved rapidly to the chair, partly unfolded the coat and slipped
+his hand into the inside breast pocket. A letter was there--_the_
+letter, as he learned when he drew it out and opened it--typewritten by
+what was clearly the hand of a novice, and setting forth just such a
+message as young Raynor had stated.
+
+"A bad move, Margot, and a little less carefully done than I should have
+thought _you_ would have countenanced, knowing how clever and cunning
+you are," was his mental comment as he read the thing. Then carefully
+refolding it, he slipped it into his own pocket, snicked off the light,
+and left the room.
+
+In the lower passage he encountered Hamer.
+
+"Begging pardon, Mr. Barch," the footman said, "but I was just going up
+to see you, sir. Hawkins tells me that you were anxious to know at what
+hour Mr. Harry returned home last night, and it happens that I know."
+
+"Do you?" said Cleek. "That's jolly. At what hour did he return last
+night, then?"
+
+"He didn't return last night at all, sir. It was four this morning and
+day just beginning to break, sir, when I heard a noise, and getting up,
+looked out of my window, and there he was, a-coming up the drive very
+cautious-like and acting as though he didn't want to be seen, as no
+doubt he didn't, sir, considering that master and mistress didn't know
+he was out at all."
+
+"Didn't know he was out? How do you know that?"
+
+"Because, sir, he said he was going to sit up and write letters when the
+master gave the order for Johnston to lock up after Lady Katharine and
+Miss Lorne returned from Clavering Close; and Mr. Harry he gave me a
+half a crown to see that the door wasn't bolted before I went to bed, as
+he intended to slip out and visit a friend. Of course I wouldn't have
+said anything about it to anybody, sir, if Hawkins hadn't told me that
+you said he was with you, which, of course, means that you were the
+friend he was going to see, and not, as I'd supposed, the Lady in
+Pink."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+WHEN FOUR AND FOUR MAKE EIGHT
+
+
+In spite of himself Cleek's nerves gave an absolute jump, but being an
+adept in the art of dissimulation, he laughed lightly and gave Hamer a
+quizzical look.
+
+"The Lady in Pink, eh?" he said cheerily. "You know more than your
+prayers, I'm afraid, Hamer. Now what in the world made you think he'd be
+calling on her last night, eh?"
+
+"Well, sir, I can't exactly say what, unless it was a sort of putting
+two and two together, sir. I'd seen him with her over Kingston way on my
+day off, only she wasn't dressed in pink then, of course. And last
+night, a deal earlier in the evening, just about the time Lady Katharine
+and Miss Lorne was starting for Clavering Close it was, sir, I happens
+to go round back and slip into Mulberry Lane for a pull at my pipe on
+the sly--master never letting any of the servants smoke in the grounds,
+and housekeeper objecting to pipes in the servants' hall--and just as I
+comes out, there she was a-standing in the shadow of the trees, and so
+close up to the wall that I nigh barged into her, sir."
+
+"Who? The Lady in Pink?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Took her by surprise, coming out in that unexpected manner,
+and she just had time to throw a pink scarf she was wearing over her
+face and hurry away, sir, before I could so much as apologize. But quick
+as she was it didn't prevent me a-seeing of her, sir, and recognizing
+her as the lady I'd seen Mr. Harry with on my day off, although, as I
+say, sir, she was dressed quite different last night. Looked to me as
+she was going to some sort of an evening affair: a dance or the theatre
+or something of that sort; for she didn't have any hat on, and although
+she was wearing a long black cloak that reached almost to the ground, I
+could see when she made such a bolt to get out of sight that it was
+lined with ermine, and that, under it, she wore a rose-pink evening
+frock that she was holding up to keep from touching the ground."
+
+Cleek did not so much as turn a hair, although beneath his placid
+exterior something in the nature of a tumult was raging. And why not?
+For here, undoubtedly, was the pink gauze dress that had left the
+fragment on the nail head at Gleer Cottage last night; and here, too,
+was a garment which, being turned inside out, would become in truth an
+ermine cloak!
+
+"Oho! Now I see how you came by the idea that Mr. Harry had gone out to
+meet her, Hamer," he said with the utmost serenity. "Quite natural,
+quite, in the circumstances; only, as it turns out, you were mistaken.
+Mr. Harry spent the evening with me, and as we had the misfortune to
+miss the Pink Lady altogether, we didn't see her at all last night,
+worse luck. But, I say, that's letting you into something, isn't it?
+Well, here's half a crown to pay you to forget all about it and to keep
+your tongue behind your teeth. Understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Much obliged, sir. Won't breathe a word to a
+living soul."
+
+"Mind you don't, or you'll spoil sport and--wait! Stop a moment! Got
+time to do something for me?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, sir. Plenty of time; no end of it this evening. Master
+says he'll be up best part of the night reading, sir, and won't need me
+at all to-night; so if it's to go anywhere or to carry any message for
+you, sir, I've got hours at my disposal."
+
+"Thanks, but I shan't require any more than a minute or two of your
+time. I'll just scrawl a line on the leaf of my notebook, and--ph, blow!
+Another fellow's evening clothes! And, besides, when I come to think, it
+was in the pocket of the coat that confounded thief carried off. Slip
+into the library and get me a sheet of paper and a bit of pencil, will
+you? Look sharp!"
+
+"Couldn't do that, sir--couldn't get what you want from the library, I
+mean. Master's in there reading, sir, and he's locked the door and given
+orders that nobody's to disturb him. But if a bit of typewriting paper
+will do, sir----"
+
+"Yes, certainly. The very thing. Can you get me a sheet or two?"
+
+"As much as you care to have, sir. It's all in the hall cupboard along
+with the typewriter itself. Master had them taken there when he'd
+finished his book and let the typist go. I'll get you some in an
+instant, sir."
+
+He hurried away forthwith and was back presently with half a dozen
+sheets of typewriting paper, a bit of pencil and an envelope, which
+latter he had included on the off-chance of its being needed.
+
+Walking a few paces away, Cleek rested the paper against the wall,
+scribbled a few hasty words, sealed them up in the envelope, and then
+handed it over to Hamer.
+
+"Here, take this thing to Miss Lorne. You'll find her in the
+drawing-room," he said, as he threw the remaining sheets which he had
+employed as a sort of writing pad upon one of the hall chairs. "You can
+attend to that litter afterward. Move sharp!"
+
+He turned as he spoke, as if to go upstairs again, but the very instant
+Hamer had disappeared he went fleetly back to the chair, caught up one
+of the sheets of paper, folded it carefully, slid it into his pocket,
+and passing swiftly and soundlessly down the hall, opened the door and
+went out again into the night.
+
+Hitherto all had been speculation, theory, guesswork, not irrefutable
+facts; hitherto all clues had been mere possibilities, never actual
+certainties. Now----
+
+The curious smile travelled up his cheek, slipped down again, and left
+his face as hard and as colourless as a mask of stone. He turned as he
+rounded the angle of the house and glanced back to where the windows of
+the dining-room cut two luminous rectangles in the fragrant,
+flower-scented darkness; then his eye travelled farther on, and dwelt a
+moment on the chinks of light that arrowed out from the curtained bay of
+the library.
+
+"Poor old chap! Poor, dear old chap!" he said between shut teeth.
+
+The tightly woven fabric of last night's mystery had started to unravel.
+In one little corner a flaw had suddenly sprung into existence, and
+to-night the first loosened thread was in this man's hands.
+
+He set his back to the lighted windows and forged on through the
+darkness until the swerving path brought him to the little summerhouse
+where, earlier, he had first met Ailsa, and stepping in, threw himself
+into a rustic seat and bent forward with his elbows upon his knees and
+his face between his hands: a grim and silent figure in the loneliness
+and the darkness.
+
+Five minutes passed--six, seven--and found him still sitting there,
+still communing with his own thoughts, though it was now nearing ten
+o'clock, and he had told Dollops to be at the wall angle to meet him at
+nine. But suddenly his attitude changed; his hands dropped, his head
+jerked upward, as a sleeping cat's does when it hears a gnawing mouse,
+and he was on his feet, alert, eager, all alive, in a twinkling. Half a
+minute later Miss Lorne stepped from the grass on to the gravel and
+found him waiting for her in the arch of the summerhouse doorway.
+
+"It is you at last, then, is it?" he said, reaching out to her through
+the darkness. "Take my hand and I will guide you if you cannot see the
+way clearly. I can't risk striking a match."
+
+"It isn't necessary; I know the way quite well," she answered; but she
+took his hand all the same. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting; I came
+as quickly as I could. Mrs. Raynor had fallen asleep over her novel
+while we were waiting for you and her son to finish your cigars and join
+us in the drawing-room, but Hamer coming in with your note awoke her and
+I could not get away so quickly as I desired."
+
+"Was Mrs. Raynor interested in the note, then? Did she show any desire
+to hear what it was about?" he questioned eagerly.
+
+"Oh, no. She"--colouring under cover of the darkness--"she merely
+laughed, and said that it was no more than she should have expected, but
+she kept me talking so long that I nearly lost all patience, and your
+note did puzzle me, Mr. Cleek. Why was it so important that you should
+see me at once without Kathie knowing? Have you discovered anything
+fresh?"
+
+"Such strange things indeed have happened, Miss Lorne, since this
+evening," he returned quietly, "that I think I shall need your help in
+getting to the bottom of them. For one thing, it is now absolutely
+certain that the murderer of the Common keeper came into these grounds
+last night after he had committed the crime, and that when he gave
+Narkom and his men the slip the fellow came directly to this place
+unseen."
+
+"Mr. Cleek!"
+
+"Sh-h-h! Not so loud, please. And don't shake like that. Steady
+yourself, for there is something yet more startling to come. There is
+now positive proof, Miss Lorne, that Lady Katharine Fordham did leave
+this house last night and go to Gleer Cottage."
+
+"I won't believe it!" she flung out loyally. But she had scarcely more
+than said it when his next words cut the ground from beneath her.
+
+"A witness has turned up," he said; "a witness who saw her there and
+spoke to her."
+
+"A witness? Dear God! Who?"
+
+"Geoffrey Clavering!"
+
+"Geoffrey Clavering? Geoffrey?"
+
+"Yes. He and Lady Katharine had an interview in the ruin this evening,
+an interview which I overheard without either being aware of my
+presence. That is what sent Lady Katharine to bed with a bad headache
+just before dinner. Geoffrey Clavering accused her of murdering De
+Louvisan and acknowledged that it was he himself who placed the two
+lighted candles at the feet of the dead man's body."
+
+She made no cry this time, no single sound. He knew that she was beyond
+doing so, that she was struck to the very heart, and he made haste to
+lessen her distress by telling her of Lady Katharine's denial and of the
+whole circumstance as it happened. Then he told of his own discovery of
+the buried clothing, his overhearing the interview, the manner in which
+the lovers had parted, and, finally, of his own act in apprehending
+young Clavering and then accepting his parole and sending him off to
+London for the night.
+
+"Why did you do that?" she questioned feebly, and was not satisfied even
+when he explained his motive. "I will not even take his word against
+Kathie's, but I could have told you that he speaks the truth when he
+says that his stepmother's interest in him is so great it is very likely
+that she did go out on the Common to look for him, and for the reason he
+gave. If he were her own son she could not think more of him. She
+absolutely idolizes him. He is not dearer to his father than he is to
+her; and if he does not return to Clavering Close to-night, be sure she
+will have the Common searched from end to end, and will go half out of
+her mind when she does not find him."
+
+Cleek took his chin between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it
+hard. This was somewhat of a facer, he was obliged to confess.
+
+"You rather take the wind out of my sails," he said reflectively. "If
+the boy spoke the truth, if the stepmother really does care like that,
+why that eliminates her from the case altogether, and it isn't worth
+while asking you to take the risk I alluded to in the note."
+
+"What risk?"
+
+"A very considerable one for a young lady in your position, should you
+be seen. As I do not even know Lady Clavering by sight, I was going to
+ask you if you would mind prowling about the Common in company with me,
+that, if the lady put in an appearance, you might be able to identify
+her for me. But of course, if it is so very certain that she will join
+in the search for the boy, there's no necessity for doing such a thing."
+
+"Pardon me, but I think, Mr. Cleek, there is more reason than ever," she
+replied, "if only to ease her mind, you know. You might do that by
+telling her that Geoff was unexpectedly called to town and that you were
+on the way to the Close to tell them so. I don't in the least mind
+taking the risk, as you call it, under those circumstances; it would be
+a charity to do so, for I know her ladyship, and Sir Philip will worry.
+Of course they will not think of worrying yet a while; it is much too
+early; and as Geoff came over here to see Kathie they will think he is
+remaining for the evening. But later, when it is past bedtime, when it
+is getting on toward twelve o'clock, they will be half out of their
+minds with anxiety. Oh, yes; I'll go with you willingly, this minute if
+you like, in such a cause as that."
+
+"How loyal you are! What a woman you are! What a friend!" said Cleek
+admiringly. "Shall I tell you something? I have hope that one of those
+friends will be wholly cleared before another day comes; that something
+may happen to-night which will make Geoff Clavering the happiest of men
+and you and Lady Katharine almost beside yourselves with joy. No, don't
+ask me what it is just yet a while. I have dreams and fancies and odd
+notions like other men sometimes; and I am a great believer in the
+theory of Loisette that a likeness of events acting upon a weary brain
+is apt to produce similar results in certain highly strung natures. But
+will you walk with me as far as the angle of the wall on the other side
+of the shrubbery, Miss Lorne? Dollops is waiting there for me. I have
+something of great importance for him to do to-night, and I think you
+will be interested in it. Will you come? Thank you! This way then,
+please, as quietly as you can."
+
+Taking her hand and keeping always on the grass and always in the dark,
+where the shadows of the trees lay between them and the lighted windows
+of the Grange, he led her on to something which even he had not foreseen
+and never for a moment guessed.
+
+At the angle of the wall he stopped and began to whistle softly
+"Kathleen Mavourneen." As upon another occasion, before he had completed
+the third bar, the wall door gaped open and flashed shut again and
+Dollops was in the dark, tree-crowded enclosure with him. It was a
+rather more excited Dollops than he had expected to find, however, for
+Cleek had no more than just begun to apologize for his lateness when the
+boy was on him like a pouncing cat and was cutting into his low-spoken
+words in a panting sort of whisper:
+
+"For Gawd's sake, gov'ner. Come quick, sir!" he said, as he laid a
+tense, nervous grip on Cleek's arm. "'Nother door in the wall, sir.
+Higher up where them mulberry trees is thickest. Woman prowlin' round,
+gov'ner. Been prowlin' round this ten minutes past and been to that door
+and tried it three times a'ready. Woman in a pink dress, sir, and a long
+dark cloak reachin' almost to the ground!"
+
+"Margot!" said Cleek in an exultant whisper. "Margot at last, by
+George!"
+
+Then, for the second time that night, he received a shock.
+
+"If you mean that French Aparsh 'skirt' we run up against in the time of
+the Red Crawl, gov'ner," interposed Dollops, "you're backin' the wrong
+horse. It aren't _her_--aren't a bit like her, sir; no fear!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+THE LADY AT THE GATE
+
+
+Cleek was conscious of a sense of keen disappointment at this piece of
+intelligence, it so completely upset all his calculation. Hitherto, the
+bits of the puzzle had fitted nicely and bade fair to make a smooth and
+flawless whole.
+
+"Are you sure?" he whispered, laying a tense hand upon Dollops's arm.
+"Don't jump to a conclusion without positive evidence. Are you _sure_?"
+
+"Rath-_er_! Of course it's too dark to see her face, gov'ner; but when
+she come to the gate the first time--she's been several, sir--it was a
+deal lighter on account of the moon not bein' hid so much with them
+blessed clouds, sir; and I could see then that she was wot you might
+call a high-stepper--summink classy and up in the nines, gov'ner, and
+had a way with her that you don't pick up if you aren't born to it. She
+couldn't have been putting it on for effect, 'cause she didn't know
+there was anybody there to see. Gone she is now, sir; slipped off over
+the Common, and I lost sight of her among all them furze bushes, but
+she'll come back, never fear. She's went away like that two or three
+times before, but always come back and tried the door, and jist struck
+her hands together and rocked back and forwards like she was half
+beside herself when she found it locked and nobody there to meet her."
+
+"And you didn't succeed in seeing her face at all?"
+
+"No, sir. It never was light enough for me to do that. But even if it
+had been, it wouldn't 'a' been no use, sir. She had summick that looked
+like a white lace scarf wrapped all round her head and over her face.
+But I was near enough to make out as she smelt summink beautiful of
+voylits, and had on one of them shiny, silky-lookin' kind of
+mackintoshes and a dress of pink silk."
+
+A black mackintosh and a dress of pink silk! _Not_ a black cloak lined
+with ermine! Not a dress of pink gauze! Of course Dollops was right in
+his statement that it was not Margot; that fact alone proved it. So
+there was a second woman who prowled about Wuthering Grange and
+endeavoured to see somebody in secret, was there? Whom? Harry Raynor or
+Lord St. Ulmer?
+
+Clearly the one in the pink gauze--Margot beyond all possible
+question--came to see Raynor, for Hamer had identified her as the woman
+he had seen in that young man's company that day at Kingston. Who, then,
+was this other woman in pink? And whom did _she_ come to see? What was
+_her_ mission, her place in this elusive puzzle?
+
+Come to think of it, he had been a fool to imagine when Dollops first
+spoke of her that it could possibly be Margot. The pink dress itself
+ought to have told him that. For although young Raynor had said that
+the lady he knew as Mademoiselle Mignon de Varville nearly always
+dressed in pink, Margot was no such fool as to prowl round this place
+to-night in the identical frock she had worn at the time of the tragedy,
+and from which that tiny scrap had been torn by the nail head in the
+floor of Gleer Cottage.
+
+True, nobody but Narkom and Ailsa and he himself knew, as yet, of the
+finding of that betraying scrap, but---- Ah, well, you couldn't catch
+Margot napping! She might not know when, how, nor _where_ that scrap had
+been torn off, but _her_ shrewd eyes would detect the missing bit in the
+skirt: she would be on to it like a cat on a mouse. He knew her methods,
+knew her miscroscopic carefulness and attention to detail. What, then,
+was this other woman's place in the puzzle? What was she after? Whom had
+she come to see? He'd make it his business to find that out, and in
+short order, too.
+
+These things had travelled through Cleek's thoughts rapidly. It was
+scarcely more than a moment after Dollops had last spoken when he
+addressed the boy again.
+
+"I've got something important on hand for you, as I told you, my lad,"
+he said in a cautious whisper. "But, first, tell me: where is this other
+door in the wall of which you speak, the one where the Pink Woman goes?"
+
+"Jist about thirty feet farther up, gov'ner; there where them mulberry
+trees is so blessed thick. You don't notice the place till you come
+smack on to it, on account of furze bushes and ivy along the foot of the
+wall. You can creep up till you're almost on it, though, without a body
+seein' of you, 'specially if you go before the party comes back."
+
+"Right you are," said Cleek in reply. "I'll act on that tip, my lad.
+Now, then, listen here. There's a ruin in the grounds of this place, and
+that ruin I particularly wish to have closely watched to-night. For one
+thing, the man who murdered the Common keeper made his way to that place
+and buried his victim's clothing there; and for another--oh, well, never
+mind. That will keep for later. Miss Lorne"--he turned to Ailsa, who all
+along had remained silent and closely huddled back in the shadow of the
+wall-angle and the trees--"Miss Lorne, we shall have to defer our stroll
+on the Common until later, I'm afraid. I shall have to look into the
+matter of this mysterious woman in pink before we can give any further
+thought to Lady Clavering and her possible anxiety over her stepson. In
+the meantime, will you, as silently and as expeditiously as you can,
+steal back through the grounds and show Dollops the way to the ruin?
+Afterward, you and I can meet again here. And you, Dollops, listen
+closely to what I say. The chances are that some one, either man or
+woman, will secretly visit that ruin to-night. Keep yourself well hidden
+and your eyes wide open. If a woman comes, slip away from the place as
+quietly as you can, come round to the shrubbery near the front entrance
+to the house, and hoot like an owl three times in succession; then lie
+low until I come out and join you. But if, on the other hand, it should
+be a man who puts in an appearance--here, lay hold of this pair of
+handcuffs--look sharp! At all costs, at any hazard, get those things on
+him and then blow your police whistle as a signal to me. I'll be with
+you like a shot. Now, then, cut along with you. Show him the way, Miss
+Lorne, and be as quiet as you can in your movements, both of you."
+
+"Mice'll be fools to us, sir," whispered Dollops.
+
+Cleek waited a minute to let them get well on their way, then stooped in
+the darkness, crept to the wall door, opened it cautiously, and went
+down on all-fours upon the strip of grass and the row of furze bushes
+that flanked that wall upon the outer side and made a narrow black alley
+between it and the crowded mulberry trees.
+
+The moon had ridden farther than ever into the depths of the thick,
+slow-moving clouds, and the darkness was almost opaque. To the left the
+great Common stretched out, a thing of gloom and shadows, blotted here
+and there with deeper black where the furze clumps were thickest or the
+full-leaved tree reached up above the skyline. On the right, the blank
+wall rose, flat, smooth as your hand, so tall it shut out even the
+lights in the windows of the Grange; and between these lay Mulberry
+Lane, a black funnel leading on to deeper darkness and the shapelessness
+of crowded trees.
+
+In the shadows of that narrow alley made by the wall and the furze
+bushes Cleek crouched a moment and listened before he ventured to move
+another inch. Not a sound, not the merest ghost of a sound. If the woman
+were in the immediate neighbourhood, she was keeping extremely quiet;
+therefore it behoved him to progress with infinite caution. Inch by
+inch, on hands and knees, he moved up that narrow alley, stopping every
+now and then to prick up his ears and listen breathlessly. But upon
+every occasion he found the stillness yet unbroken and no sign or sound
+of breathing life anywhere about him.
+
+Two minutes passed--three--five--half a dozen, and still all was as it
+had been in the beginning. By this time this slow, cautious creeping had
+carried him over two thirds of the distance, and he was now within ten
+or eleven feet of the hidden gate; and still no sound or sign of the
+woman's return. Indeed, no sound of any sort until, with one hand
+outstretched and one knee lifted to edge forward yet a trifle more, he
+paused abruptly, sucked in his breath, and huddled softly down, becoming
+but a mere dark heap on the damp, dark grass.
+
+A sound had come at last! The unmistakable sound of some one moving
+cautiously through close-pressing branches and crowded leaves.
+
+It was so faint a thing that ears less keen than his might not have
+detected it. Yet, at the first rustle of the first stirred leaf he
+caught the hiss of it and knew it was not the woman that made it; for
+the prickly foliage of furze makes no rustling sound when a passing
+body brushes it, and there was nothing upon the outer side of the wall
+_but_ furze that was low enough to be brushed in passing.
+
+Clearly, then, the sound was from the other side of the wall, from
+within the grounds of the Grange! Some one was coming to keep the
+tryst--some one who, evidently, had been delayed past an agreed time,
+otherwise the woman would not have made all those anxious pilgrimages to
+the door and been so upset when she found it still locked and nobody
+there to meet her.
+
+Well, this was a stroke of good fortune at all events; for if by any
+chance the woman did not return there would at least be the satisfaction
+of discovering----A sound interrupted: a cat's mew to the life. And from
+the shadow of a thick furze hedge on the Common side of the lane it was
+answered.
+
+"Yes, I am here," a shrill, eager voice called out in a sharp, keen
+whisper. "Oh, come quickly or I shall go insane!"
+
+Almost instantly there was a rustle of silken garments, a patter of
+footsteps, the swift moving of a figure across the lonely lane, followed
+by the rattle and click of a key in a spring lock, the creak of an
+in-swung gate moving upon its hinges, and with these things the sound of
+an excited man whispering warningly, "Sh-h-h!" as the woman swept down
+upon him in a state bordering on absolute hysteria.
+
+"Oh, if you could but know what agonies I have suffered, what horrors
+of suspense I have endured!" she said in a wailing sort of whisper, "I
+feared that you might not be able to come, after I have risked so much
+to be here; but when I heard the cat's mew, I wonder that I did not
+scream."
+
+And again the man's whispered "Sh-h-h!" sounded, but fuller than ever of
+excitement and fear.
+
+But Cleek scarcely heard it. Other and more startling things were
+claiming his thoughts. A scent of violets was in his nostrils; a sting
+of bitter recollection was in his memory. What was it the dying Common
+keeper had said? "All shiny pale green satin, sir, with sparklin' things
+on her bosom, and smellin' like a field of voylits in the month of May!"
+
+He did not need Ailsa Lorne to point her out to him after this. He knew
+without anybody telling him; knew in that first moment, as surely as he
+ever lived to know in moments yet to come, that this veiled and
+night-hidden woman who stood there by the garden door keeping tryst with
+a man was she who had been out on the Common last night: Sir Philip
+Clavering's wife!
+
+And the man she was meeting, this crafty fellow who hung back in the
+shadow of the solid gate, who and what was he? What part was his in this
+grim riddle of death?
+
+It was Lady Clavering herself who gave the answer.
+
+"Oh, it is so easy to say that," she went on, answering his warning
+"Sh-h-h" in a whisper that was shrill with agony and despair, "but the
+dread of shrieking will be on me forever after this, the horrible dread
+that if I do not cry out in my waking moments I may unconsciously do so
+in my sleeping ones. I know it was mad of me to do this thing, to take
+this dreadful risk in coming here; but I couldn't sleep until I saw you,
+until I had told you that I know! I think I knew it yesterday; I think I
+foresaw it when you wrote and warned me, and if I had not been a coward,
+if fate had not sent him to Clavering Close last night and let me see
+that it was written he should come back into my life again----"
+
+Her voice snapped off and failed her for an instant, sinking down to a
+dull, whimpering sound like the wail of an animal that is beaten; then
+it came back to her and she spoke again.
+
+"I knew you would kill him, I knew that you would!" she said in that
+horrible, excited whisper. "I felt it in my soul the moment he looked up
+and recognized me, and I knew what I--what you--had to dread. It was
+that that drove me out on the Common. I wanted to find you; I wanted to
+stop you. But it was too late, too late! I know that you did it for my
+sake as much as for your own, but the thought of the thing, the
+_thought_ of it! If anything can palliate that, if God can in any way
+excuse it, it will be that you got the letters; that you tore them up,
+burnt them, did anything in the world but let them fall into that woman
+Margot's hands! Oh, did you? I cannot sleep until I know. For if you did
+not----"
+
+Here her voice snapped again, but for quite another reason this time, a
+reason which made Cleek groan inwardly.
+
+Far down at the other end of the dark alley where he lay breathlessly
+listening, a faint rustling sound had suddenly risen--the sound of some
+one creeping gently toward him. He knew and understood what was
+happening, what an unkindly blow fate had dealt him. Ailsa was
+returning. She had taken his expression, "Afterward you and I can meet
+here again," to mean after she had conducted Dollops to the ruin, not
+after Cleek's own work was done; and lo! here she was returning at this
+inopportune moment. She was creeping along on tiptoe, it was true, and
+moving as stealthily and as silently as she knew how, but in that utter
+stillness, with silk skirts that brushed the wall as she advanced----
+
+The end came abruptly. There was just one second of breathless
+listening, then without a word the two people at the open doorway
+parted. Lady Clavering jumped back, darted across the lane, and vanished
+in the blackness of the Common; the wall door closed, the spring lock
+clicked, and the sound of a man's running echoed faintly from the other
+side. No time this for craft and finesse. Here was a call for action, a
+demand for muscle, not brain. If that man was a member of this
+household, if fleet running could do it, if any man who should be under
+that roof was _not_ there----
+
+Cleek was on his feet like a flash. He scudded down the lane openly, he
+ducked into the door and vanished into the gardens without so much as a
+word to Ailsa, he struck through the plantation and made a short cut for
+the lawn and the front door, and with jaw squared and teeth shut, ran
+and ran and ran.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+THE MOUSETRAP
+
+
+Cleek covered the distance between the wall angle and the door of the
+Grange in a fraction over a minute, and he had neither heard any one nor
+seen any one on the way. He went up the steps two at a time, and,
+swinging into the hallway, made hot foot for the dining-room. An inward
+push on the door and all that lay beyond it was in view.
+
+The lights were still burning, the decanter and the glasses still _en
+évidence_, and, what was still more to the point, there lay Mr. Harry
+Raynor with his arms sprawled out over the tablecloth and his head
+between them, snoring away in a semi-drunken stupor, with his mouth wide
+open and his flushed face a little less attractive in slumber than it
+was in wakefulness.
+
+Not he, then!
+
+Cleek dashed out of the room and flew upstairs to Lord St. Ulmer's room.
+No time for craft and cunning this. At whatever risk, at whatever cost,
+he must assure himself of where _that_ man was at this particular
+moment; and, even if he had to break down the door to get in---- The
+possibility ceased to exist while it was yet taking shape in his mind.
+
+For he had reached the second landing, had come within three feet of
+Lord St. Ulmer's room, when he heard a voice from within it say, "Then
+if there is nothing more, your lordship, allow me to thank your lordship
+and to say good-night"--and was in time to see the door open and
+Johnston, the butler, come out. More than that, to look past him and see
+the figure of a man lying in bed with his back to the door, his face to
+the wall, and one pajama-clad arm lying outside the bedclothing.
+
+Not St. Ulmer either, eh? Then who the dickens----He turned and made a
+bolt for the staircase again.
+
+"Anything I can get you, Mr. Barch?" inquired Johnston. "I've just
+returned from town, sir, so if there's anything Hamer has neglected to
+do in my absence----"
+
+"No, thanks, don't want anything!" flung back Cleek, not waiting for him
+to finish; and then cut downstairs again in such hot haste that his feet
+beat an audible tattoo upon the padded steps and gave such evidence of
+excitement that he was not at all surprised when the key of the library
+click-clacked sharply, the door opened, and General Raynor appeared.
+
+"What's this? What's the meaning of all this confounded hubbub when I
+expressly said"--he began--and then, looking up and seeing Cleek,
+stopped short and changed his tone. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Barch; I
+didn't know it was you! Is there anything wrong?"
+
+"No, General," replied Cleek. "Sorry if I disturbed you. Just looking
+for----" Then he, too, stopped short and changed his tone. For of a
+sudden his ear had caught the shrilling note of a distant police
+whistle, and excitement swayed him.
+
+"Dollops, by Jupiter!" he cried unthinkingly. "Got him! Got him, the
+little brick!" and without another word he faced about, ran down the
+hall, and pelted off through the grounds in the direction of the ruin.
+
+And all the time the police whistle was shrilling, and Dollops's voice
+was sounding, and the darkness was full of scuffling sounds. For the
+noise of the whistle had disturbed the servants, and Cleek was hard put
+to it to get to the scene of the uproar before them. He did, however;
+but they were close upon his heels and as excited as he when, upon
+nearing the ruin, they came upon two struggling figures linked together
+and careering about like a couple of fighting tomcats.
+
+"Here yer are, gov'ner; ketched him foul, the rotter," sang out Dollops
+as his master came scudding up with all that troop of servants pounding
+along in his wake. "Look! See!"
+
+Then an electric torch clicked, and lo, there he was, with one end of a
+pair of handcuffs snapped on his own wrist and the other locked fast
+upon that of a distinguished-looking man in a spring overcoat and
+evening clothes.
+
+A stranger to Cleek this man, but not to the servants of Wuthering
+Grange; and it came as a shock when he heard them speak his name.
+
+It was Sir Philip Clavering.
+
+The man's identity had no sooner been made known than he broke forth
+with a storm of indignant protest.
+
+"What is the meaning of this outrage, and who is this young person?" he
+demanded with heat. "As some of you have good enough eyes to recognize
+me, perhaps you will have good enough wits to go for your master and let
+me get to the bottom of this extraordinary proceeding as soon as
+possible. I should like to know what on earth this means. Ah, Raynor, is
+that you?" he added, as he caught sight of the General forcing his way
+to the front. "Glad you've put in an appearance. Perhaps you can throw
+some light upon this affair. Who's this fellow?" twitching his head
+toward Dollops. "What's he doing here? And what is the meaning of this
+astonishing business, if you please?"
+
+"Good heavens above, how do you expect I am going to know? Never saw him
+in all my life," exclaimed the General in bewilderment. "Look here,
+young man, what's the meaning of this? Who are you? What are you doing
+in this place? Speak up.
+
+"Name's Dollops," replied that youth serenely. "Business: Scotland Yard.
+Lay: Doin' wot I'm told by my gov'ner. Boss: Mr. 'Amilton Cleek,
+_Es_-quire. All other questions I refers to him."
+
+Cleek! The name produced universal excitement. There was not one person
+present that had not, at one time or another, heard it and did not
+recollect of what it was the synonym. It stood for the Law and the
+coming of the Law! And last night a man had been done to death within a
+gunshot of this house.
+
+"It is too absurd, too absurd!" said Sir Philip, after a moment,
+speaking with a little shaky laugh and looking Dollops up and down with
+half-contemptuous interest. "I hope, Raynor, that you----Good heavens
+above! What asinine mistakes the law does sometimes make. And it is all
+so easily explained. Superintendent Narkom of the Yard will speak for me
+if it is necessary. There can, by no shadow of possibility, be anything
+to connect me with that abominable case."
+
+It was here that Cleek chose to take part in the affair, and with a
+warning glance at Ailsa, who had come up and joined the gathering,
+stepped forward and addressed Sir Philip.
+
+"My dear Sir Philip Clavering, allow me to introduce myself," he said
+suavely, serene in the confidence that Dollops, hearing, would take the
+cue and act accordingly. "My name is Barch; I am at present a guest of
+the General's, and I am taking this liberty because I, too, happen to be
+a friend of Mr. Narkom's. I have heard him speak of you time and again,
+and always with the warmest interest. Perhaps, then, if we question this
+young man----" He turned to Dollops, and Dollops looked at him and
+never turned a hair! "Boy, what's all this thing about? How came you in
+this place, and for what reason?"
+
+"Come in by the garden door, sir, 'arf an hour or so back. Told off by
+my gov'ner to lie low and wait for somebody who might come a-sneakin'
+about, meanin' to break into the house, I suppose, and with his eye on
+the plate."
+
+"I see! Well, better take my advice, my lad, and unlock those handcuffs,
+and set this gentleman at liberty before they do come, or you're likely
+to have a sharp talking to from Superintendent Narkom. By the way, what
+induced you to snap them on him in the first place? You surely do not
+expect us to believe that a gentleman of Sir Philip Clavering's standing
+was acting suspiciously? What was he doing, if you please, that you
+should have gone to such a length?"
+
+"Sneakin' along and feelin' about the bushes like he was huntin' for
+somethin'," said Dollops as he unlocked the handcuffs and put them in
+his pocket.
+
+"He is quite right in that, Mr. Barch. I _was_ looking for something,"
+said Sir Philip, wiping his wrists with his handkerchief, as though to
+remove something of the infection with which he felt he had come into
+contact. "As a matter of fact, I was looking for my way. I had come into
+the grounds from a point where I had never before entered them, and I
+was endeavouring to find a path which would lead me to the house. As it
+was as black as a pocket, nothing was left me but _to_ feel my way. I
+got hopelessly muddled up, and was just telling myself that I would have
+done better to make my call in orthodox fashion and by the regular
+entrance, when, the first thing I knew, this enterprising young man
+jumped out of the dark and pounced on me like a monkey. You see, it was
+this way, Raynor," glancing up at the General, who was looking at him
+fixedly, and with a curious ridge between his brows, as if, for some
+reason, he only half believed him, though for years they had been tried
+and trusted friends; "I was in such a dickens of a hurry to see you that
+when I came off the Common and found that wall door open----"
+
+"Open? What wall door open?" interposed the General agitatedly.
+
+"The one at the angle of the wall, where your boundary flanks the waste
+land between here and the right-of-way across the fields."
+
+"And you found that door open? _Open?_ Why, man alive, it has been
+locked and screwed up for years."
+
+"Has it, indeed? Well, it was open to-night, then. As I was saying, when
+I found that open, I thought that, possibly, it might be a short cut to
+the house, so I dashed in and got into this abominable fix."
+
+"But why did you wish to take a short cut to the house, Clavering? Was
+there any reason for such a thing?"
+
+"None but that I was anxious; that I am anxious still, when it comes to
+that. About my boy, Geoff, you know."
+
+"About Geoff?"
+
+"Yes, you know how foolish Marise and I are over him. He left to come
+over here early this afternoon, and said he would not be long, but he
+did not return even for dinner. Of course Marise was disappointed, for
+she had said that after so much gloom and depression we must do all that
+we could to brighten him up and to appear merry, and even went to the
+length of getting out a pink silk frock which he had always admired,
+when she dressed for dinner to-night. She was distressed when he didn't
+come, and anxiety brought on a splitting headache, so bad, in fact, that
+she went to her room to lie down and rest. Later, Celine came down to
+tell me she had taken a sleeping draught and there was every likelihood
+of her sleeping until morning. I was glad when I heard that, for I knew
+how she would worry if she were awake and the boy did not return at a
+reasonable hour; and when it crept along to be nine o'clock and after, I
+don't mind confessing that I began, myself, to worry."
+
+"Why?" said Cleek, dropping in an unexpected query.
+
+"My dear Mr. Barch, you wouldn't ask that if you knew what a bond of
+affection exists between my son and me," Sir Philip replied. And Cleek
+heard, or fancied that he heard, the General give a sort of sigh, as if
+he were contrasting this man's heir with his own. "Besides, after that
+mysterious and abominable affair last night--after a man had been
+murdered in this identical neighbourhood, to have my boy out and
+alone---- Oh, well, you can understand. I got a bit nervous--a bit
+dotty, if you like. I imagined all sorts of things, and when it got to
+be half-past nine I set out to walk across the Common to meet him. I
+didn't, however, so I suppose he is still here; and in the enjoyment of
+Lady Katharine's society and the hope that has so unexpectedly returned
+to them both, has forgotten all about the time and the probable worrying
+of his silly old dad. That's why I was so anxious to get to the house as
+quickly as possible, Raynor, and why I was foolish enough to take what I
+fancied might be a short cut. I wanted to be certain that the boy is
+still here; I wanted to walk back with him when he goes home. No harm
+can possibly come to him then."
+
+Not once during all this had General Raynor's eyes left the man's face,
+nor had the faint pallor and the curiously tense look departed from his
+own. He stood looking at Sir Philip in intense and unbroken silence, his
+lips tightly set, a worried look in his fixed eyes, as if he were trying
+to believe this thing and found it difficult to do so. Now, however, he
+turned to the assembled servants, ordered them back to the house, made
+one or two uneasy turns up and down for a distance of three or four
+yards, then halted suddenly and looked into Sir Philip's face again.
+
+"Clavering," he said in his abrupt, direct manner, going straight to the
+point, as was his custom. "Clavering, are you sure that you are telling
+the truth about this? Are you sure? Will you swear, will you give me
+your word of honour, that it was to seek your boy, that and that alone,
+which brought you to this place to-night?"
+
+"Raynor! By the Lord Harry, sir----"
+
+"No, don't fly into a passion. Anger is no answer, and an answer is what
+I want. A man of honour responds promptly to an appeal to that honour;
+and I am asking you on yours if you are telling the truth?"
+
+"On my word of honour, then, I am!" said Sir Philip indignantly.
+
+"And you will swear by it that you came only to meet your son? That you
+had no other purpose in coming whatsoever?"
+
+"Yes, decidedly I will swear it. Are you taking leave of your senses,
+Raynor? What other reason _could_ I have?"
+
+An expression of intense relief drove that other and darker look from
+the General's face and eyes.
+
+"I don't know," he said, fetching a deep sigh; "but I am glad to have
+your word for it, glad to say that I accept it. Still, why should I not
+ask? Why should I not question everything, any statement, in the face of
+to-night?"
+
+"I don't know what you are driving at, I am sure."
+
+"Don't you? Then let me tell you: your boy is not here. He left this
+afternoon; came and stayed but a little time, and left so early that
+there has been time and to spare for him to get back to Clavering Close
+a dozen times over. On the top of that, you tell me that a door in my
+garden wall, a door that has been locked up, and screwed up, and even
+rusted up, for years was found standing open. And on top of that again,
+an emissary of the police, of Scotland Yard, of that man Cleek, is here
+in these grounds. Who opened that door? What brings the police to
+Wuthering Grange? That is what mystifies me; that is what I want to
+know. What brings the police here, of all places in England? Do you
+know, Clavering? Do you know, Miss Lorne? Do you know, Mr. Barch?"
+
+"Not the ghost of an idea, I assure you, General," said Cleek serenely.
+"Never knew the beggars were here until this young person declared
+himself. But, yes, by Jove! We'll have 'em here in full force presently,
+I'm afraid, if those sounds go for anything. Coming in answer to that
+blessed whistle, I'll lay my life. Here, boy!"--this to Dollops--"nip
+off as quickly as you can, and head them off. Tell 'em it's a mistake;
+tell 'em you didn't mean to blow that whistle for assistance. Move
+sharp; we don't want that lot in here, or---- Hullo! I say, what's the
+matter, Sir Philip? A bad turn, is it? Upon my soul, you look as white
+as a sheet!"
+
+It was no exaggeration. The moon, coming suddenly out from behind the
+clouds at that moment, showed him leaning heavily against a tree and
+looking pale as a dead man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT
+
+
+"My boy?" Sir Philip Clavering made answer, in a wrung voice, a voice
+that clearly showed where all his thoughts were, and that he had had
+ears for nothing, care for nothing, heart for nothing, from the moment
+he had been told that Geoff had left the Grange hours and hours ago.
+"What has become of my boy? Where did he go? What has happened to him?
+He never came back! He never came back!"
+
+The agony of the man was so intense, so apparent, that Cleek's heart
+ached for him, and he made haste to spare him any greater pain.
+
+"Oh, as for that, Sir Philip, you needn't worry an atom," he said. "I
+think Miss Lorne has something to tell you about him, and just where he
+went, and why he hasn't returned. In fact, I know she has, for he left a
+message with her. Went to town on some special matter for Lady Katharine
+Fordham, didn't he, and is likely to be very late indeed in returning?"
+
+"Yes," said Ailsa, taking her cue and remembering. "In fact, it is a
+matter that may keep him so late it is possible he will stop in town
+until morning, Sir Philip. He asked me to send word over to you and
+Lady Clavering to relieve you of any possible anxiety; and, indeed, I
+should have done so long ago, only----"
+
+"Only that I volunteered to walk over the Common and back with her if
+she'd carry the message herself instead of sending it by some one,"
+supplemented Cleek, coming to the rescue. "And then, like an idiot, I
+sat so long after dinner with young Mr. Raynor that I forgot all about
+it until she sent me in word. We were going to start at once, and would
+have done so but for this hubbub. Happened to think, however, that as it
+was late and the Common very lonely, it would be wisest to carry
+something for protection in case of necessity, so ran up to my room to
+get a pistol I had given me. That's why you heard me making such a
+clatter in running up and down stairs, General, when you popped out of
+the library and asked what was up."
+
+The General made no reply, but the expression of his mouth and eyes told
+plainly what he thought of a man who had to rely upon firearms for
+protection in case of assault by footpads. He gave his shoulders a
+significant twitch.
+
+But Sir Philip was too greatly relieved by the good news of his son's
+safety to give thought to other details.
+
+"You can't think what a load you've taken off my mind, Mr. Barch," he
+said. "I can go home now feeling satisfied. My mind is at rest."
+
+"I wish mine were, then," put in the General. "But to have one's place
+invaded--and secretly invaded--by the police! God! If I only knew what
+it means. That thing last night, and now this! Who under this roof has
+fallen under suspicion--_could_ fall under suspicion? The thing is as
+mysterious as it is appalling. Clavering, you know this man Narkom. You
+must introduce him to me; he must tell me upon what evidence, what
+pretext, this thing has been done. The police do not take action without
+_some_ shadow of reason, some good cause, for what they do; and that my
+garden door should be secretly unfastened that one of their spies may
+enter these grounds---- It is abominable. Why didn't he apply to me for
+permission to enter the place if he thought it necessary to do so? I
+have my rights as well as any other subject of the king. Why, then,
+should he break open my garden door without warrant or privilege and
+send his spies in here?"
+
+"Maybe he didn't, General." It was Cleek that spoke. "Come to think of
+it, the explanation of that chap who claimed to be attached to the
+police was rather fishy, and he was precious sharp about cutting his
+lucky when I sent him off. Besides, why _should_ he take orders from
+_me_, anyway?"
+
+"My dear Mr. Barch----"
+
+"Catch the point? We've had one sneak thief visit the Grange already,
+General. What's the odds that they are not identical? We never knew how
+the first one managed to get into the place nor where he went when he
+got out of it. Well, then, what about that garden door being the answer?
+Why shouldn't it have been he that unfastened it? Why shouldn't this
+business of pouncing upon Sir Philip and making an outcry be a clever
+dodge to make a safe getaway?"
+
+The General looked up, brightening, as if a load had been lifted from
+his shoulders, and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
+
+"I hadn't thought of that, Mr. Barch," he said, caught by the
+feasibility of an argument backed up so plausibly. "We did have a thief
+pay us a visit earlier in the evening, to be sure; and, as you say, very
+possibly---- Yes, yes, it must be so. There could be no shadow of a
+reason for the police coming here, because---- Eh? What's that, Hamer?"
+facing round as he heard his name mentioned, and discovering the second
+footman, who had just put in an appearance. "Telephone, did you say?"
+
+"Yessir. Somebody asking to speak to Mr. Barch, sir; and I requested him
+to hold the line while I came to call the gentleman."
+
+"Somebody calling for me over the telephone?" inquired Cleek, with
+sudden deep interest. "You are sure it is for me, Hamer? Sure that the
+name was Barch?"
+
+"Yessir, quite. Mr. Philip Barch was the name given, and I was to say
+that it's a most important message."
+
+Cleek turned and looked inquiringly at the General.
+
+"Yes, certainly, Mr. Barch, certainly," he said, replying to that look.
+"The instrument is in the library, which opens directly off my study.
+Hamer will show you the way."
+
+"No, I will," put in Ailsa. "I shall have to be running up to see how
+Kathie is, and it will be on my way. Good-night, Sir Philip. Good-night,
+General. Come, Mr. Barch, I'll show you the way." She went with him out
+of the moonlight in the open to the dark of the shrubbery and the trees
+that shut in the path to the house.
+
+"Tell me," she whispered eagerly as they hurried along. "Are you nearer
+the end? Is the solution anywhere in sight?"
+
+"I think so," he answered.
+
+"Oh!" with a sharp intaking of the breath. "You found it out at the
+garden door, then? You saw the woman and you saw the person she came to
+meet?"
+
+"To the contrary, I saw neither. I merely heard the woman speak. It was
+a voice I had never heard before. The man said nothing, and never once
+showed himself. He might have done both but that they heard you
+returning and separated like a shot. But please, we will not speak of
+that at present. Wait for me by the shrubbery; I'll tell you a lot when
+I meet you there. Just now I am anxious to know who it is that is
+telephoning to 'Mr. Philip Barch' and for what. Only two persons outside
+of Dollops and yourself know that name and whose identity it covers.
+One is Geoffrey Clavering, the other Mr. Narkom. No, please! Don't ask
+me any questions now, I can't stop to answer them. But this you may know
+if it will ease your mind at all: Lady Katharine Fordham never had
+anything to do with it, although she was there. Oh, yes, she was, Miss
+Lorne; for all your protestations, I tell you that she was! And, what is
+more, I know the man, although I do not as yet know the motive!"
+
+"Oh! You found it out, then, at the garden door?"
+
+"No, I did not. I daren't stop to explain, but believe me, Miss Lorne, I
+begin to see light. I only wonder at one thing: What makes Sir Philip
+Clavering use black cosmetic? Sheer vanity, I suppose."
+
+"Does he?" cried Ailsa, in surprise.
+
+"Yes, on his moustache. It's wonderful why some of these old men hate
+gray moustaches so. Wait for me, I'll be back as quickly as possible,"
+and he dived into the house to answer the mysterious telephone call.
+
+Cleek went straight to the library, flashed an inquiring look all round
+it as he closed the door, made sure that nobody else was there, and
+walking to the telephone took up the receiver and put it to his ear.
+
+"Hallo!" he said somewhat cautiously; then, after a moment: "Yes,
+Barch," he added in response to a query from the other end. "What's
+that? Speak a little louder, please; I can't hear clearly. And, I say, I
+don't recognize your voice. Who are you?"
+
+The voice in question underwent a complete change, showing that the
+owner of it had, in the first instance, carefully altered it until sure
+of his man, and then over the wire came promptly the two words: "Geoff
+Clavering!"
+
+"Eh, what?" exclaimed Cleek, not a little surprised by this revelation,
+and not doubting the truth of the statement for an instant now that the
+real voice of the speaker sounded. "Why, what the dickens-- I say, where
+are you?"
+
+"In London, at the Savoy Hotel, speaking from one of the booths. Got
+here twenty minutes ago, and as soon as I registered and got a room, I
+hunted up one of the clerks who knew me by sight, and then came in here
+and rang you up."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I wanted you to know that I'd kept faith with you; that I really have
+come to London as I promised. If you doubt it, there's the clerk to
+prove it any time you like."
+
+"Why, you ripping young---- By George! Well, well! See here: as open
+confession's good for the soul, let me say that I don't doubt it, and,
+what's more, I never did doubt it, you splendid young pepper pot!"
+
+"Thanks very much, that's jolly nice of you. But listen here,
+Mr.--er--Barch. Can't you get word to my pater somehow? He'll worry
+himself dotty when midnight comes on and I don't turn up. And I say: how
+long have I got to stop up here, anyhow? I hear there's a down train at
+four in the morning. Can't I take that, and put on end to the dad's
+anxiety as soon as possible?"
+
+"He hasn't any anxiety on the subject whatsoever, my boy. Miss Lorne and
+I have seen him, and trumped up a story to cover everything. He doesn't
+expect you back until morning. But---- Would you like a pleasant
+surprise? Well, you can come back at once if you like and get it. Take
+your own time, however; only be sure that you turn up here not later
+than twelve, and are waiting just outside the lodge gates of the Grange
+when I go there to meet you. What's that? Yes, quite satisfied, quite.
+She did come out on the Common to-night, and---- What's that? To look
+for you? Yes, of course. What other motive could she have, you silly
+fellow? She came out, and your father came out; and--listen and catch
+this, Clavering"--sinking his voice--"for it is very important. You
+said, did you not, that last night when Lady Katharine took you into
+that house she told you she would show you something that would 'light
+you back to the land of happiness'?"
+
+"Yes. Those were her words. Why?"
+
+"Well, you be outside the lodge gates at the time I want you, my boy,
+and I'll show both of you the way to that land to-night." And he hung up
+the receiver before Geoff could say a word.
+
+"The soul of honour, just as I knew he was, the young beggar!" he said,
+putting his thoughts into words for once in a way. "A son for any man
+to be proud of, that!" And chuckling a little, he prepared to leave the
+room.
+
+But as if the sight of that room, with its swinging French window, its
+reading desk with an open book upon it and an easy chair beside, brought
+back to his memory that other son and that other father, the smile faded
+suddenly from his lips, his jaw squared, and a pucker gathered between
+his level brows.
+
+What a difference between the two sons of those two men he had left out
+there in the grounds! The one clean-lived, clean-minded, honour's very
+self. The other a wastrel, a sot, a liar, the consort of evil women and
+disreputable men, a poor, paltry worm living in an oak tree's shade.
+
+And to-night the General had wondered why the police should be coming to
+Wuthering Grange; what trail from last night's tragedy led to the
+threshold of this house! Yet, while he sat here reading, his own son----
+Heigho! "'Tis a mad world, my masters," a mad, mad world indeed. Poor
+old chap! Poor, blind, unsuspecting old chap, sitting here all alone and
+reading! What was it he was reading while his unnatural son was
+slandering him to a stranger?
+
+He walked to the reading desk and bent over the open book that lay upon
+it, with a pamphlet beside it and a litter of loose papers all round.
+
+"Fruit Culture," by Adolph Bonnaise. And the pamphlet? He took it up to
+look at the title page, for the half of it was smothered under loose
+papers, one or two of which his act sent fluttering to the floor. The
+April number of _The Gardener and Fruit Grower_. Reading of flowers and
+of fruits, of Nature's good and beautiful things, and all the while----
+Yes, indeed, Shakespeare was right. It _is_ a mad world! Worse than mad:
+it is wicked! And the sons of men are the wickedest things in it!
+
+Oh, well, he mustn't stand wasting time here in moralizing and mooning.
+Ailsa was waiting.
+
+The papers he had disturbed lay on the floor, close to a half-filled
+scrap basket. Unimportant things enough they were: seedsmen's circulars,
+soap advertisements, tailors' announcements, all the litter of
+loose-leaf insets that are thrust between the covers of monthly
+magazines; quite unimportant, and not worth the trouble he was taking to
+gather them up and replace them upon the desk. But---- Oh, well, he
+shouldn't like the General to think that when he came into the library
+to use his telephone he'd been cad enough to look over his papers; so,
+of course--That all of them? Any drop into the waste basket by chance?
+Perhaps that bit of white paper with the red blob of sealing wax on each
+end might have fallen with the rest. He picked it out of the basket,
+turned it over, and decided that it hadn't; smelt it, smiled one of his
+curious one-sided smiles, and flung it back into the basket.
+
+Even an old soldier may have his foibles and his weaknesses. It is on
+record that Bonaparte had a secret love of bonbons; that Washington had
+a passion for barley sugar; and that Drake slept always with anise
+seeds within easy reach.
+
+He turned away as he tossed the paper back, walked to the door, opened
+it, and stepped out. The staircase down which he had run in such hot
+haste at the sound of Dollops's whistle was before him. He stopped an
+instant and looked up it, then nodded his head in the direction of Lord
+St. Ulmer's quarters, and if he had put his thoughts into actual words,
+would have said this:
+
+"I'll know your part in it, and I'll see your face by hook or by crook
+before this night is over; I promise you that, my man!" Then he turned
+again, and went down the hall to the dining-room.
+
+Harry Raynor was still there, lying with his arms sprawled out upon the
+table and his head sunk between them.
+
+Cleek stood still and looked at him. Of a certainty, the man had moved
+since last he saw him; but whether that movement had been merely the
+unconscious stirring of a sleeping man or the fellow had been up and
+about in the meantime, it was impossible to say.
+
+Cleek, taking no chances, closed and locked the door, and assuming once
+more his "Barch" tone and manner of expression, advanced to his side,
+shook him, and said:
+
+"I say, Raynor, don't be a howling ass! Buck up and don't sleep the
+whole blessed night away. I'm jolly lonesome."
+
+Young Raynor went on snoring serenely, and neither answered nor moved.
+
+Still Cleek was taking no chances. He repeated the operation with
+greater force and louder spoken words, and finding it produced no
+effect, finally shook the man so hard that his head lolled over on one
+arm and let the hidden face come into sight.
+
+The jaw hung loose, the scooped cheeks and pendulous lip gleamed pale as
+ivory, and the whites of his eyes shone like narrow bands of silver
+through the slits of their half-closed lids.
+
+There was no question whatsoever regarding the man's condition.
+Satisfied now, Cleek felt his pulse, pushed up one of his eyelids and
+examined the eye itself. The pupil was largely dilated, the white
+suffused considerably, and both were slightly filmed.
+
+"Hum-m-m!" he breathed conclusively, then turned from the man and looked
+at the decanters and glasses on the littered table. "Port, Brandy,
+Benedictine, Scotch. To be sure! to be sure! Who is to know the taste of
+a mere guest in the matter of his after-dinner drink? So, if it is put
+in _all_----" He took up the decanters one by one, sampled their
+contents in turn, and smiled one of his queer crooked smiles when he set
+the last one down.
+
+"Clever, very clever, my friend," he said. "And who was to tell you that
+the guest would not drink at all?"
+
+Then he turned on his heel suddenly and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+THE OPEN WINDOW
+
+
+He had scarcely taken a dozen steps down the hallway, however, before he
+encountered General Raynor, who had just then reëntered the house by the
+front door.
+
+His rugged old face wore a look of deep anxiety, as though the exciting
+scene through which he had so recently passed bore heavily upon his
+spirits, despite Cleek's attempt to allay his distress by branding
+Dollops as a possible sneak thief; but he brightened perceptibly and
+made a valiant effort to appear quite at his ease when he looked up and
+saw Cleek.
+
+"Get your call over the telephone all right, Mr. Barch?" he inquired
+pleasantly.
+
+"Yes, thanks," said Cleek serenely, still keeping up his "Johnnie" air.
+"Awfully obliged to you, I'm sure. Dickens of an important message.
+Should have been in no end of a hole if I hadn't received it. But I say,
+General, you ought to be more careful, you know, especially with sneak
+thieves about."
+
+"As how, Mr. Barch?"
+
+"Why, that blessed swing window in the library. I found the thing
+unfastened, don't you know."
+
+He hadn't, of course, for he had not been near it. But his statement
+undeniably agitated the General, though he made a brave effort to
+disguise it.
+
+"Did you?" he said. "That's peculiar. I never noticed it. I must speak
+to Johnston about it; it's his duty to see that it is locked, and I
+supposed he had done so. Still, it's of no great consequence as it
+happens. The sneak thief didn't enter by that way, I am sure."
+
+"No, but he might easily have done so; and if he had come in there while
+you were alone you might have had a warm time of it; don't you think so,
+eh, what?"
+
+"I fancy _he_ would have had a warm time of it, as you express it, Mr.
+Barch. I'm not so old but I know how to take care of myself, believe
+me."
+
+"No, I suppose not," said Cleek. "Had a jolly lot of practice in your
+young days--with the gloves and all that. Forty-fifth Queen's Own used
+to have a national reputation for the best boxers and wrestlers in the
+service, I'm told. Suppose it was the same in your day; and you got a
+lot of practice out there in Simla in your subaltern days."
+
+"You are wrong in both particulars. I did not belong to the Forty-fifth
+Queen's Own, Mr. Barch, and I was not billeted to India. I passed out of
+Sandhurst into the Imperial Blues, and from the time I was twenty-two
+until I was twenty-six I was stationed at Malta."
+
+Cleek made a mental tally of those two statements.
+
+"Oh, I see; mistake on my part," he said serenely. "Malta was it? And
+the Imperial Blues? Thought Harry said the other. I've got a rotten
+memory. But it doesn't matter which, does it, so long as you learned the
+trick, and are able to put up a stiff fight and floor a burglar still?
+I'll lay you could floor one in short order, too, when I come to look at
+you," he went on, glancing the General up and down with apparent
+admiration. "Lord! shouldn't like to run foul of you when your temper's
+up. Built like a blessed gladiator. Shoulders on you like a giant; arms
+like--mind if I feel what they're like?"
+
+Impudently taking hold of him before he could reply or resent the
+familiarity, Cleek moved the General's forearm up as if to see the
+swelling of the biceps.
+
+"That's what I call muscle!" he exclaimed. "What a wrist! What a fist to
+floor a man or---- Hullo! been flooring some one since I left you,
+General? Big green smudge on your cuff, as if you'd been up against a
+mossy wall? Didn't get into a scrap with Sir Philip after I left you,
+did you, eh?"
+
+There was no gainsaying it, the General's face grew absolutely white as
+he looked down and saw that green smudge on the white cuff which
+protruded beyond the sleeve of his evening coat. It was evident he had
+not noticed it before.
+
+"No, certainly I have _not_!" he rapped out sharply as he plucked away
+his arm. "Sir Philip Clavering has gone home. And if you will pardon my
+saying it, Mr. Barch, I object to being handled."
+
+"Awful sorry; did it before I thought," said Cleek vacantly. "No
+offence, eh? Because, you know, none was meant. Ought to have
+remembered; ought to have remembered half a dozen things when I come to
+think of it. One of 'em is that you and Sir Philip weren't likely to
+scrap like a couple of drunken navvies; and t'other is that you couldn't
+have got wall-moss on your cuff if you had, when there wasn't any wall
+where I left you. So you couldn't have got it there, of course."
+
+"And as that settles it, I think we can abandon the subject with profit
+to both, Mr. Barch," said the General stiffly. "As a matter of fact, I
+don't know where nor how I did get the smudge; and it's of no
+consequence anyway. And now, if you will pardon me, I'll ring for
+Johnston to lock up the house--we always retire to bed early at the
+Grange, Mr. Barch--and have a wee drappie o' whisky and turn in. The
+evening has been unpleasantly eventful, and I feel the need of something
+in the way of stimulant."
+
+"So do I, by Jove! Never drank a blessed drop to-night, didn't feel up
+to it, don't you know; but if you don't mind my toddling into the
+dining-room and helping myself----"
+
+"By all means do so, Mr. Barch, by all means!" interposed the General
+with something akin to eagerness. "You will find plenty there. Help
+yourself."
+
+"Thanks very much. But come to think of it, you haven't had a drink
+to-night, either. Told Hawkins you didn't feel like it, I recollect."
+
+"No, I didn't at the time, but I certainly require it now; so if----"
+
+"Good business!" interjected Cleek airily. "Come in and let's have one
+together. Harry's asleep, so I shan't have any company; and as I never
+like to drink alone, and you are my host, and there's plenty in the
+dining-room----"
+
+"Pray don't think me discourteous, Mr. Barch," interposed the General
+blandly, "but I think I will take my whisky hot this evening; and as I
+make a practice of never taking a hot whisky until I am safely between
+the sheets, will you pardon me if I do not join you, but have mine
+served in my bedroom to-night?"
+
+"Yes, certainly," said Cleek. "Only if I'm left to drink alone I'm apt
+to take two or three instead of one, and my doctor says I oughtn't to,
+don't you know."
+
+"Doctors are not infallible, Mr. Barch; they often make errors.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night," said Cleek. "But if I have a headache in the morning--oh,
+well, I can't help it. If I have one I'll have it I suppose. Here goes!"
+He walked back along the hall and went into the dining-room and shut the
+door, leaning heavily against it and breathing through his shut teeth
+the one word, "God!"
+
+The footsteps of the General clicked off down the hall, but Cleek never
+stirred, never moved a muscle, until their dwindling sound dropped off
+into sudden silence and all was still. Then, as softly as any cat, he
+twitched round, opened the door, closed it after him, and stood alone in
+the hall.
+
+He moved on tiptoe to the library. The door was closed. He stopped and
+listened.
+
+The faint rustling sound of papers told its own story. The General had
+not gone to his bedroom, he was in there!
+
+With fleet, unsounding steps Cleek moved from that closed door to the
+open one of the drawing-room, remembering what Ailsa had said of how
+Mrs. Raynor had dozed over her coffee while they waited for him to come,
+and of how, after Hamer had carried in his note, the good lady had
+rallied the girl, and then gone off to bed because, she said, she was
+sleepy--sleepy at half-past eight o'clock!
+
+Taking into consideration the events of the evening, he had counted upon
+the possibility of something happening; and the moment he entered that
+room and looked round him he knew that it had done so.
+
+The butler's evening off; the excitement and distraction occasioned by
+that screaming police whistle sounding from the grounds and sending all
+the servants flocking out. These things had conspired to upset the
+routine of things as they should be in a well-regulated house; and lo!
+the silver tray and the coffee service and the cups, used and unused
+alike, had been overlooked, and there they still were, awaiting removal.
+And beside them stood a liqueur stand with Chartreuse, Benedictine,
+Cręme de Menthe, and a half-dozen tiny Venetian glasses.
+
+Liqueurs with coffee! He went over and looked at the glasses; so much,
+so very much, depended upon that. If more than one had been used; if
+Ailsa, too, had taken liqueur---- No, she had not! Only one glass had
+been used, and Mrs. Raynor had gone to bed!
+
+He rubbed the tip of his finger round the inner side of that one used
+glass, and put it to his tongue.
+
+The wine and the spirits in the decanters on the table of the
+dining-room had all tasted alike. This liqueur tasted like them.
+
+He made no comment, wasted no time. The instant he had decided that
+point he left the room and went back to the hall and to the gardens
+beyond the entrance.
+
+Ailsa Lorne waited for him at the shrubbery; but it was not to the
+shrubbery he went! His way lay round the angle of the house, past the
+path to the ruin, past the windows of the dining-room where a drugged
+man lay, and on through the darkness, until he stood in the shelter of
+the trees directly opposite a broad stone terrace, upon which the
+swinging French window of the library gave.
+
+It was bright with inner light, when first he came in sight of it; but
+he had barely halted before that light went out--and left it as black as
+pitch.
+
+But a moment later Cleek drew farther back in the shadow of the trees.
+
+He had warned General Raynor to be careful to lock that window, and now
+here he was not only disregarding that warning, but pushing the sashes
+wide apart.
+
+"Coming again, is she, General?" said Cleek in the soundless words of
+thought. "A bad move, my friend, a very bad move. One may not recognize
+a man's voice from a simple 'Sh-h-h!' but when he steps out of a library
+with a black mud-spot on the toe of his house shoes and a green smudge
+on his cuff----"
+
+He stopped and crouched back under the trees, and was very, very still.
+
+Through the darkness a faint rustling sound had suddenly risen, the soft
+falling of a foot, the careful passage of a body between lines of
+leaves.
+
+Some one was advancing cautiously toward that darkened and opened
+window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+THE VIEW HALLOO
+
+
+That the nocturnal visitor would prove to be Lady Clavering Cleek had
+not the smallest shadow of a doubt, although he marvelled much at her
+temerity in venturing into the grounds of the Grange after that
+experience at the wall door so short a time previously, and he therefore
+remained as breathless and as still as the shadows surrounding him, and
+waited the coming of events. Not, however, without some slight feeling
+of disappointment at the thought that, intricate and puzzling as this
+case had been, it now promised to be solved in such a tame and paltry
+manner; for if the newcomer should prove to be Lady Clavering, as,
+naturally, he had every reason for supposing, the affair would resolve
+itself into simply playing the part of eavesdropper at her interview
+with the General, and then making capital of the information thus
+obtained.
+
+The intruder was advancing with extreme caution, but lacking his own
+peculiar gift of soundless stepping and noiseless movement, did not
+succeed in passing between hedge and coppice without the betraying
+rustle of disturbed leaves; and it was out of this circumstance the
+mischief which followed was formed.
+
+The shrubbery where Ailsa was waiting lay but a rope's cast distant from
+the spot where Cleek now crouched; and as if the ill-luck which had
+balked him once before to-night was intent upon flooring him at all
+quarters, he had no sooner grasped the unwelcome fact--made manifest by
+the clearer sound of the approaching body as it came into closer
+range--that the steps were advancing in a direct line with that
+shrubbery than a thin, eager whisper pierced the stillness.
+
+It was the voice of Miss Lorne, saying cautiously, yet distinctly:
+
+"Goodness gracious! Why, Purviss! You don't mean to tell me it's you?"
+
+Purviss! Not Lady Clavering, but Geoff Clavering's old valet, Purviss?
+Here was a facer to be sure. Well, well, you never can tell which way a
+cat will jump, and that's a fact.
+
+Purviss, eh? So he, too, was in the know, was he? Of course he must be,
+to be playing the rôle of Mercury and carrying messages between them in
+this secret manner. Cleek decided to have a look at Mr. Purviss, and a
+word or two as well, by George! For now, of course, he would make no
+attempt to go near that window.
+
+The thought had no sooner presented itself to him than he acted upon it.
+With the speed of a hound, but with no more noise than a moving shadow,
+he left his hiding-place, skirted the house, got round to the front of
+it, crawled up the steps, then, rising suddenly, appeared to come out of
+the doorway and down the steps whistling, as he descended to the gardens
+and moved leisurely along in the direction of the shrubbery.
+
+When he was within a foot of it he suddenly stopped, pulled out his
+cigarette case, struck a match as if for the purpose of smoking, and by
+the aid of that light saw standing within a yard of him Miss Ailsa Lorne
+in close conversation with a mild-mannered, mild-faced elderly person,
+upon whom the word "valet" was clearly written.
+
+"Hullo, Miss Lorne, enjoying an evening ramble, too? May I be allowed to
+join you?"
+
+"With pleasure, Mr. Barch," said Ailsa. Then she motioned toward the
+valet, who had stepped meekly back.
+
+"Purviss has just come over from Lady Clavering to inquire for Mr.
+Geoffrey----"
+
+"Ah, yes," said Cleek, smiling to himself unnoticed in the dark. "He
+left this afternoon, did he not? You have evidently just missed Sir
+Philip, who was himself here."
+
+"Yes," added Ailsa, "I was just telling him, but it seems he has a
+message for General Raynor from Lady Clavering----"
+
+"I thought as much," said Cleek to himself triumphantly, though aloud he
+remarked, calmly enough: "Ah! but the General has gone to bed. I heard
+him say that he was not to be disturbed, but if you care to give any
+message or letter, I'll go and knock him up."
+
+"Oh, no, there's no need to do that, sir," replied Purviss hurriedly.
+"It's only a request for a gardening book if I happened to see General
+Raynor; of no importance at all, sir."
+
+"I quite understand," said Cleek, the smile on his face hidden in the
+screening darkness.
+
+"As for Mr. Geoffrey," put in Ailsa kindly, "he is quite safe. He went
+up to town on an errand for Lady Katharine----"
+
+"Thank you, Miss," returned Purviss respectfully. "That will be a relief
+to her ladyship to know that. She was very anxious. Good-night, Miss!
+Good-night, sir!" With a deferential salute, the man turned and
+disappeared swiftly into the night.
+
+"You see now," said Ailsa, "that I was right, that Geoff's absence would
+create such a panic at the Close that they would scour the place for
+news of him. First his father, and now Purviss. I thought you would be
+satisfied as to the truth of his mission directly I spoke."
+
+"Yes," said Cleek quietly, "but he did not come here to seek Geoff
+Clavering. That was a lie. He came for the purpose of having an
+interview with some one else, and for the second time this night, Miss
+Lorne, you have unfortunately prevented me from hearing something which
+might have cleared this mystery up without any further search on my
+part. You remember how I rushed past you at the time when Dollops had
+set me on the track of the lady in pink? She came and she had an
+interview, or, at least, she had the beginning of an interview, with the
+man she was there to see. What's that? No, she was not Margot. She was
+Lady Clavering. Sh-h-h! Quiet! Quiet! Yes, she was Lady Clavering. And
+she had just accused the man she came to meet of having murdered De
+Louvisan, when your approach startled the pair of them and made them
+separate hurriedly. Miss Lorne, can you stand a shock? Good! Then hold
+your nerves under tight control. The man Lady Clavering met at the wall
+door to-night was the master of this house, General Raynor!"
+
+She all but collapsed when she heard that.
+
+"General Raynor?" she breathed in a horrified voice. "General Raynor?
+And Lady Clavering? Oh, but why, but how? Dear Mr. Cleek, it--it is like
+some horrible dream! What possible connection could there be between
+those two people of all others?"
+
+"I don't know. I have a suspicion--it is my business to have that, you
+know--but I want something stronger. I shall have it soon. My work here
+in this house is pretty well finished, I fancy. Maybe to-morrow, maybe
+the next day, but this week certain, I shall be off to Malta. I am going
+to hunt up a man's army record there."
+
+"The General's?"
+
+"Yes. His and--well, possibly, some one's else. When I come back I
+promise you that I will have the solution to this riddle in my hands.
+What's that? Oh, yes, Margot is in it."
+
+"Then why--then how can Lady Clavering----"
+
+"Lady Clavering, it appears, knows Margot. So does the General,
+evidently, for she mentioned her name to him."
+
+"Dear heaven! And you say that she accused him of the murder? Accused
+him? How could she?"
+
+"She was there--at Gleer Cottage--_last_ night. She went there to meet
+him. But she was not, however, the first to direct my suspicions against
+the General. That was done hours before and by a totally different
+person."
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"His son," said Cleek, and forthwith told her of that memorable
+interview with Harry Raynor after dinner, and of the typewritten letter
+he had abstracted from the young wastrel's coat pocket. "Miss Lorne, I
+waste no sympathy upon that worm," he went on. "From the top of his
+empty head to the toe of his worthless foot there's not one ounce of
+manhood in him. But he spoke the truth! His father did type that forged
+letter and for the purpose he declared."
+
+"To get him out of the neighbourhood for the night?"
+
+"Yes. And but for the mere accident of the fellow's having discovered
+that the typist girl was out of England, he would have succeeded
+without having to resort to other means."
+
+"How do you know that the General typed the letter?" asked Miss Lorne.
+
+"I didn't in the beginning," returned Cleek. "I did know, however, that
+it had been typed by somebody in this house; for I stole the letter,
+then tricked Hamer into getting me an unused sheet of the typing paper
+that was left over from the manuscript of the General's book. A glance
+at the watermark showed them to be identical; in other words, that the
+letter had been typed upon one of those left-over sheets. Well, that was
+one thing; the other was that the General, having failed to get his son
+out of the way for to-night by that means, took steps to accomplish it
+by drugging him."
+
+"Drugging him?"
+
+"Yes. Earlier in the day Purviss had brought him a note from Lady
+Clavering, and it was imperative that he should go out to-night to meet
+her in secret. He didn't want his son prowling about, and he didn't want
+me prowling about, either. Still less did he want you prowling about, or
+that his wife should know of his leaving the house after she had gone to
+bed. To make sure of having no such risk to run, he put a sleeping
+draught into every drop of spirit or liqueur that was served in this
+house to-night. What he had not reckoned upon, however, was the fact
+that neither you nor I tasted either. But at this moment his son lies
+drugged and unconscious in the dining-room, and it would be a safe
+hazard to stake one's life that his wife is lying unconscious in bed."
+
+"But--but--are you _sure_ there is no mistake?"
+
+"No, Miss Lorne, there is no mistake. It was the General who did the
+drugging. I found the paper in which the sleeping draught had come from
+the chemist's in the waste basket in the library; and when I wanted to
+clench the belief and make it absolutely positive, I tricked the General
+into confessing that he stood in need of a stimulant after the stress of
+the night, then invited him to join me in one from the decanters in the
+dining-room. He knew what was in that liqueur and--he declined. I knew
+then that there was no mistake about his being the hand that had done
+the drugging, just as I had known previously that he was the man Lady
+Clavering had met at the wall door.
+
+"When I rushed past you that time and raced through these grounds, I had
+no more idea than a child unborn who the man I was pursuing would prove
+to be. He might have been Harry Raynor; he might have been Lord St.
+Ulmer. I even said to myself that he might be any male member of this
+household from the General down; and my one idea was to get to the house
+and to find which man was missing. I found no one absent! St. Ulmer was
+in his bedroom; Harry Raynor was sleeping over the table in the
+dining-room; and as I came clattering down the stairs the General
+stepped out of the library to inquire into the cause of the
+disturbance. To all intents and purposes he had been in there reading
+the whole evening long. But it was a significant fact that as he opened
+the door and came out, I was able to see past him into the room and to
+discern that the curtains drawn over the swinging window were bellying
+inward, showing that the opening of the door had started a current of
+air which could be created only by the window behind them being likewise
+open.
+
+"That gave me the first suspicion of a clue. I looked at the man himself
+for further evidence to back it up and, in the first glance, found it.
+There was black soil on the toes of his house shoes and a smudge of
+green wall-moss on his shirt cuff! I knew then just what he had done,
+and how I had failed to overhaul him in that hot race. He had simply
+ducked down out of sight, lain still in the bushes and allowed me to run
+past him. For me there was, of course, no other means of entering the
+house but by the door; for him there was the library window! He waited
+to give me time to get into the house, then rose, ran across the
+intervening space and back into the library by means of that window, and
+had had just about sufficient time to get there when I came rushing down
+the stairs. You will remember, will you not, that I spoke of those two
+things: the spot of black and smudge of green? You know now to what I
+alluded."
+
+"It is wonderful and--yes, it is horrible also!" she said with a faint
+shudder. "What a day of horror this has been! I think the shadow of it
+will weigh upon me forever."
+
+"Not if I can help it," said Cleek very gently, very tenderly. "And I
+count very, very much indeed, Miss Lorne, upon the possibility of making
+you bless it before the whole twenty-four hours of it have been rounded
+out. Don't you remember what I said to you about my hopes for the
+clearing of all shadows from the path of Geoff Clavering and Lady
+Katharine, about the theory of Loisette?"
+
+"Loisette? That is the great French scientist, is it not? The first man
+who actually did establish a standard rule for the training of the
+memory and schools for the teaching of his system all over the world?"
+
+"Yes, that is the man. His principle is somewhat akin to that of the
+principle of homoeopathy. 'Like cures like,' says the homoeopathist.
+'Like produces like,' says Loisette, 'and the similarity of events
+acting upon the human mind may, by suggestion, produce similar results,'
+Well, last night Lady Katharine Fordham went through an experience which
+no living woman is ever likely to forget: the knowledge that hope of
+happiness is over, and that the man she loves is lost to her beyond all
+possible recall. This evening, in the ruin over there, she went through
+an exactly similar experience, and after some few hours of hope, was
+thrust rudely back into the absolute certainty that a barrier as high as
+heaven itself had come between Geoff Clavering and her. I stake my
+hopes upon that, Miss Lorne. I look for Loisette to be vindicated. I
+look for last night to be repeated _in all particulars_, and I am so
+hopeful of it that I have sent for Geoff Clavering to come here and be a
+witness to it."
+
+"Sent for Geoff Clavering to come here--here?"
+
+"Yes. At twelve o'clock he will be waiting for me at the lodge gates;
+and if all goes as I hope and believe that it will go--ah, well, it will
+be a blessed time for him, for her, for you! As for myself--but that
+doesn't matter. I shall have but one more thing to accomplish under the
+roof of this house, and then if the trail leads elsewhere, I'll be off
+to Malta as fast as steam can take me."
+
+"And that one thing, Mr. Cleek? May I ask what it is?"
+
+"Yes, certainly. It is to discover Lord St. Ulmer's part in this elusive
+business, and then to be absolutely certain of getting at the man who
+killed the Count de Louvisan, and at the reason for the crime."
+
+"The reason? The man?" repeated Ailsa in utter bewilderment. "I thought
+you said just now that you were satisfied regarding that? Why, then,
+should you speak as if there were a possibility of Lord St. Ulmer being
+concerned in the murder if you are seemingly so sure that General Raynor
+did it?"
+
+"General Raynor? Good heavens above, Miss Lorne, get that idea out of
+your mind! Why, General Raynor is no more guilty of the murder of De
+Louvisan than you are!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+
+LOISETTE IS VINDICATED
+
+
+Ailsa caught her breath with a faint, little, sobbing sigh at this, and
+even if the moon had not chosen just then to slip out from the screen of
+the enveloping clouds and throw a dusk of silver over everything, so
+that he could see her face and the deep look of relief in her uplifted
+eyes, he still would have known what a load his declaration of the
+General's innocence had lifted from her mind.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad," she said fervently; "so very, very glad! Do you
+know, I made sure from the manner in which you spoke that, horrible as
+it seemed, it must surely be he; that you must certainly have discovered
+something which left no room for doubt in your own mind; otherwise you
+would not have told me all these terrible things regarding the forged
+letter and the drugged drink and his meeting with Lady Clavering at the
+wall door. And now to know that you do not suspect him, that you are
+sure it was not he that killed De Louvisan, ah, I can't tell you how
+glad I am."
+
+"How loyal you are to your friends," he said admiringly. "You needn't
+assure me of your gladness; I can read it in your voice and face. No,
+General Raynor is not guilty, although I am very positive that he not
+only was out last night, but was actually at Gleer Cottage; but I am
+absolutely certain his was not the hand that killed De Louvisan. I will
+even go further, and say that it would not surprise me to learn that he
+was not even present at the time of the killing, though there is, of
+course, always the possibility, in the light of my theory of the whys
+and wherefores of the case, that he was."
+
+"You have a theory regarding it, then?"
+
+"Yes. I had a vague one in the beginning that became more pronounced
+when I heard Lady Clavering speak of 'letters' in her interview with the
+General at the wall door to-night. She also spoke of Margot, recollect.
+And I have said from the first that a woman was in it."
+
+"And you think that she--that Margot--did it?"
+
+"Did what--the murder? No, I do not. As a matter of fact, I am beginning
+to believe that the presence of that crafty female in England, and in
+this particular neighbourhood at this particular time, may possibly have
+led me to leap to a conclusion which is a long way from the truth. That
+she meant to see De Louvisan, and, with the aid of her band, deal pretty
+harshly with him--give him the 'traitor's spike,' in fact--I feel very
+nearly positive; but I am now beginning to realize there is a
+possibility that the scrap of pink gauze may not have come from Margot's
+dress, and that she may not have been at Gleer Cottage last night,
+after all. In other words, that the woman in the case is not Margot."
+
+"Who then? Lady Clavering?"
+
+"Possibly. There is, however, a chance that it is not even she."
+
+All in a moment Ailsa flamed up.
+
+"You are leaving only Kathie," she said with spirit. "And if you were an
+angel from heaven you could not make me believe it is she. I know you
+declare that she was at Gleer Cottage last night; that you say Geoff
+swears he met her there; but even so----"
+
+"Oh, thank you for reminding me of that dear boy," interjected Cleek,
+whipping out his watch and glancing at it. "If he keeps his promise, as
+he doubtless will, he'll be at the lodge gates in exactly twelve
+minutes, Miss Lorne. And there is another 'dear boy' to consider too, my
+poor Dollops, who's probably waiting at the wall angle for me to explain
+my change of tactics with regard to the arrest and release of Sir Philip
+Clavering. Will you pardon me if I rush off and see him for a few
+minutes? I'll be back here to join you as quickly as I can, and then, if
+you will honour me, we'll be off together to the lodge gates to meet
+Geoff Clavering."
+
+He did not wait for her to reply; did not stop to make any comment upon
+her remarks regarding Lady Katharine. Moving off as briskly as if he
+were endeavouring to evade that subject, he slipped soundlessly away
+through the shrubbery and was gone before she could speak. He was absent
+for something like eight or ten minutes; then, as silently and as
+abruptly as he had left her side he issued from the bushes and returned
+to it.
+
+"Shall we go to meet Geoff?" he asked; and again scarcely waiting for
+her to reply, led the way in silence.
+
+It was on the tip of Ailsa's tongue to ask him if, after so often
+expressing his conviction of Lady Katharine's innocence and admitting
+to-night that he had changed his opinion with regard to one woman's part
+in this elusive riddle, he had suddenly changed it regarding her, too,
+when, without preface of any sort, he looked round at her.
+
+"Rum how we English stick to precedent, isn't it?" he said. "Ever remark
+how faithfully old footmen cling to their 'calves' and old valets cleave
+to their little black side-whiskers? And, I say, Miss Lorne! what's the
+fashion in evening petticoats these days? Coloured ones, I mean. Do they
+have to match the dress that's worn with them or not?"
+
+"Certainly they don't," said Ailsa, looking round at him in surprise.
+"Good gracious, Mr. Cleek, whatever in the world are you thinking
+about?"
+
+"I? Oh, nothing in particular. There we are at the lodge gates at last;
+and here's our man. Come in, bonny boy, come in."
+
+Geoff came up out of the shadow of the two big trees at the entrance and
+moved swiftly toward the gates.
+
+"Wait a bit," went on Cleek. "I've got a skeleton key handy, and in two
+shakes of a ram's tail----Told you so! In with you, my lad. Miss Lorne's
+here with me; and if Loisette wasn't a dreamer and I'm not a fool,
+you'll be the happiest chap in England to-night. Sh-h-h! don't speak.
+Walk on your toes, take to the grass, keep in the shadow of the hedge,
+and get over there to that shrubbery as quickly and as noiselessly as
+you can. With you in a minute, my boy."
+
+He was. Stopping just long enough to relock the gates and to motion
+Ailsa to accompany him, he travelled like a fleet-moving shadow across
+the lawn, and was again with Geoff Clavering.
+
+"Well, here I am as you requested, you see, Mr. Barch," said Geoff. "I
+don't know what in the world you meant when you told me that thing over
+the telephone; but whatever it is that's going to make Kathie and me as
+happy as you promised, I'm ready enough to hear it, God knows."
+
+"Yes, God does know; you're right there, my boy. He knows that Lady
+Katharine did call you into Gleer Cottage last night, and did send you
+into the room where that dead man's body hung; and--oh, yes, she did,
+Miss Lorne. He'll tell you that just as he told me; won't you,
+Clavering, eh?"
+
+"Yes," said Geoff, and did forthwith, giving all the details just as he
+had given them to Cleek hours earlier in the General's famous ruin.
+
+"Will you believe now, Miss Lorne?" said Cleek, and then paused and gave
+a little, shaky, half-suppressed laugh. For, of a sudden, a cuckoo's
+note had risen softly over the stillness, sounding thrice in rapid
+succession, as if the bird had mistaken the moon's glamour for the sheen
+of day dawn, and had sent forth this untimely call.
+
+Hearing it, Cleek knew that what he had so fervently hoped might come to
+pass really _had_ come to pass, and that the theory of Loisette was
+about to be vindicated.
+
+"Or, if you will not," he said, taking up the sentence just where the
+bird note had broken off, "come with me and find proof of it for
+yourself. Come quickly. Hold your breath. Walk on your toes. Don't make
+a sound on your lives. This way. Quickly. Come."
+
+He took them each by the hand and, leading the way, passed on tiptoe
+with them out of the shrubbery and down the hedged path to the mimic
+ruin. The figure of Dollops rose out of the shadow of it as they came
+upon the place, moved fleetly and quietly to Cleek's side, and then as
+quietly slipped round behind him into the shade of the trees.
+
+"All right, gov'ner," he whispered softly. "Over to the left there. Give
+you the signal the minute I spotted her. Lie low, all of you. Here she
+comes!"
+
+"Here who comes?" Ailsa and Geoff spoke in concert.
+
+"Lord, I dunno, miss," replied Dollops in a whisper. "Gov'ner said,
+'Look sharp for a lady in white, and "cuckoo" when she appears.' Dunno
+no more than that."
+
+Ailsa flashed round and looked at Cleek.
+
+"Yes, Miss Lorne," he said, answering that look. "Lady Katharine
+Fordham! She did steal out of the house last night, and-- Loisette is
+right. The mirror of to-night, reflecting the counterpart of yesterday,
+is duplicating events. Her ladyship is stealing out of the house again,
+and on the selfsame mission: to visit Gleer Cottage. She will certainly
+wear a cloak, though not an ermine one, to-night. I looked out to see
+that one was placed in the anteroom, to make sure of that. Quiet, quiet,
+all of you! Not a sound, not a breath! Look sharp! You'll see her
+presently!"
+
+They saw her even then. Of a sudden a footstep sounded, the rustle of
+moved leaves disturbed the stillness, then the figure of Lady Katharine
+rounded the angle of the ruin, and advanced toward them with great
+deliberation. A long dark cloak covered her almost to the feet, the hood
+of it being drawn up over her head until its loose frill framed her
+face; but it was easy to see, as she advanced, that under that cloak she
+wore a gown of white satin and slippers with sparkling buckles on the
+toes. She came into view so suddenly, and was walking so rapidly, that
+she was upon them almost as they saw her, walking straight to them,
+walking straight by them, within touch of them, yet seeming not to care
+or even to notice, and taking the path which led to the stable gate, to
+the waste land beyond, and thence to Gleer Cottage. It was then, when
+she had deliberately walked past them, then, and then only, that Ailsa
+understood.
+
+"Dear God!" she said in a shaking whisper as she plucked at Cleek's
+sleeve. "She does not know, she does not understand. She is asleep, Mr.
+Cleek!"
+
+"Yes," he made answer. "You know now why she looked so haggard and weary
+this morning, despite her assurance that she had slept well. Poor little
+woman; poor unhappy little woman! A sleep-walker, Clavering--and going
+back where her heart leads her: to the cottage where she had often spent
+those happier days when she was so sure of love and of you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+
+"QUICK! FIRE!"
+
+
+Geoff did not reply; he could not. As if the sight of that slow-moving
+figure, linked with the realization which had now come upon him, had
+wrought a curious numbing effect upon mind and heart alike, he simply
+stood there, breathing hard, and looked, and looked, and looked, but
+said no single word. Even Dollops could see that there was a glint of
+something wet and shining in the crease beside his eye, and that, in
+spite of tears, he smiled as a man might smile if he had waked to find
+that all the world was his. It was Ailsa that made the first sound,
+spoke the first word.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Cleek, to think that she should be a somnambulist," she said
+with a little catch in her voice, as if she were laughing and sobbing at
+the same time and fighting hard to do neither. "And to think that you
+should have guessed it when even I, her dearest and closest friend,
+never suspected it for an instant."
+
+"Oh, as for that, Miss Lorne, I really deserve very little credit
+indeed," he made answer.
+
+For a moment he followed with his eyes the departing figure of Lady
+Katharine as it moved fleetly along the path to the stable quarters,
+where stood the stile giving access to the paddock and thence, by a
+far-away wall door, to the waste land of the open country beyond.
+
+"If anybody is to be praised for the discovery of the truth as
+manifested to-night," he went on presently, "that praise should go to
+Loisette alone. He has said--that wise Frenchman--that 'the likeness of
+events acting upon a highly strung and overwrought mind is likely to
+produce exactly similar results.' There is his vindication before you.
+Last night all hope of happiness was smitten out of that poor girl's
+mind by the affair at Clavering Close and the certainty that she had
+lost the man she loves forever. This morning new hope came; this evening
+that new hope was dashed to earth again by her interview with this dear
+boy, and the future looked blacker and more hopeless than ever. The
+'likeness of events' had come; there is the 'likeness of result' before
+you. Back into her ball dress, back into her cloak, back into everything
+that had to do with that other time; there she goes now back to Gleer
+Cottage as well!"
+
+"God!" said Geoff, with a queer sort of sob; then leaned his curved arm
+against a tree trunk and hid his face in the crook of it. "And to think
+what I said to her, what I thought of her! I ought to be kicked for a
+brute. And yet I wouldn't have hurt her for all the world--my dear, dear
+girl!"
+
+"Buck up, my boy, buck up!" said Cleek, patting him on the shoulder,
+"The world can do with all the brutes of your kind that can be created;
+for they make good sons, good husbands, and loyal gentlemen! She said,
+did she not, that she would 'show you something that would light the way
+back to the land of happiness'? Well, she's doing it, my boy; and if you
+were to follow her this minute you'd find history repeating itself down
+to the smallest detail. Only, you _mustn't_ follow her; you mustn't let
+history repeat itself, Clavering. Gleer Cottage is not in the same
+lonely and unwatched state to-night that it was in last night. The
+police are there. They mustn't see what happens, because I've a fancy
+for keeping some things with regard to this case off the annals of
+Scotland Yard and out of the courts of England. You must stop her, you
+and Miss Lorne."
+
+"Stop her? How? Isn't it dangerous to wake a sleep-walker?"
+
+"Yes, if it's done rudely. But people in that condition will answer
+questions, and---- Who spoke first, when you met last night?"
+
+"Why, I did, of course. I was so bowled over when I looked up and
+recognized her that I said: 'Kathie! Great Scott, is it you?' before I
+thought. That's how she came to speak to me."
+
+"Then go and say it again," advised Cleek. "When she answers, suggest to
+her that you sit down and wait for a moment, as you promised you would
+do, until Miss Lorne could join you. Once she sits, be sure the desire
+to walk will pass away; she will gradually sink into the natural
+position for sleeping and will sleep soundly for a time. As for the
+rest, you may rely upon the coldness and the hardness of the earth to
+half arouse her, and it will be but a step from that to complete
+wakefulness if Miss Lorne begins to sing very, very softly and to rustle
+the leaves as she comes up and joins you both. Now then, off with you,
+my boy, and move as softly as you can until you come up with her and
+speak."
+
+Geoff did not hesitate. He only paused to look back at Cleek and say:
+"By Jove, you know, you are a ripping chap!" and then was off on tiptoe
+after Lady Katharine.
+
+Watching, they saw him come up with her at last, and knew when he spoke
+by the manner in which she stopped and looked round at him; they saw her
+put a finger to her lips and nod and beckon, and knew when he spoke
+again and suggested the things that Cleek had advised, by the listless
+manner in which she let her hands drop, the wavering uncertain way in
+which she stood swaying and looking straight before her.
+
+Then, after a moment or two--they could have cheered had they
+dared--they saw her look round in the direction of a little knoll to
+which Geoff pointed and then placidly turn and walk with him toward it.
+
+"Oh, what a dear, dear friend you are!" said Ailsa, impulsively, as she
+looked round and up at Cleek, with tears in her eyes and a face all
+smiling. "I wonder which is your greater side--your shrewdness or your
+humanity?"
+
+"I can tell you which is my weaker one," he smiled, looking down upon
+her with eyes that spoke to hers. "And maybe, some day if you will let
+me do so----But that's another story, as our friend Mr. Kipling puts it.
+Wait! Don't go yet, Miss Lorne. Before you start to join them and to
+play your little part in the drama of Lady Katharine's awaking, there's
+one more favour to be asked. Afterward you will understand why I ask
+this thing; for the present I want only your promise that you will
+unquestioningly obey. Will you give me that promise? Thank you, I felt
+sure that you would.
+
+"You know the old saying: a bird that can sing and won't sing must be
+made to sing. Equally, then, a door that can be opened and will not open
+by persuasion or by threats, must be compelled to open by trickery and
+craft. I am going to commit an act of violence under the roof of
+Wuthering Grange to-night, Miss Lorne. I'm going to do a thing that men
+get sent to prison for, and justly, too, if they are found out; only
+that I am not going to carry my act into full completion: merely make a
+bluff at it, as it were.
+
+"Meanwhile I want you to promise me that as soon as you have awakened
+Lady Katharine and have made her understand that she did go to Gleer
+Cottage last night and really has been walking in her sleep, you will
+find a pretext--you and Geoff Clavering, between you--to get her as far
+from the neighbourhood as possible for the next two or three hours. Yes,
+Clavering Close will do. Any place will do so that neither she nor he is
+within hailing distance of this house when my 'act of violence' is
+committed. Try to do this if possible, Miss Lorne; more than you dream
+of hinges upon it. In any case, promise me that no matter what
+excitement is created you will not venture near the house and will
+prevail upon them not to do so either. Will you?"
+
+"Yes, certainly I will. And if I tell Geoff that it is your wish, I'm
+sure I may promise for him as well."
+
+"Thank you. That's all. Now I'll be off about my business. You
+see"--nodding in the direction of the paddock--"Geoff has persuaded her
+to sit. Good luck to your little 'singing tour,' and God bless you.
+Good-bye. This way, Dollops! Move sharp!"
+
+Speaking, he swung off into the darkness, with the boy following close
+upon his heels, and forged on in the direction of the wall angle, there
+to wait until his instructions were acted upon and it was time for him
+to play his last great card.
+
+And lo, as they went, a sweet, soft voice rose in murmuring melody
+behind them and they could just distinguish the words, "Kathleen
+Mavourneen, the gray dawn is breaking," so softly Ailsa sang them as she
+passed on in the direction of the paddock stile.
+
+"A good, true woman that, Dollops," said Cleek, pausing to listen. "And
+there's nothing better in heaven or out of it than a good woman, my lad.
+Always remember that."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Dollops softly and refraining from further comment.
+
+Cleek laughed to himself as they took the angle path again. "I know the
+secret of the universe at last, my lad," he said softly. "The way to
+heaven is through a good woman's eyes!" Then he laughed again, and spoke
+no more until they were at their journey's end.
+
+"Now, then, my embryo Vidocq," he began, halting in the shadow of the
+wall angle and laying a gentle hand on Dollops's shoulder, "a word or
+two with you. I think you told me earlier in the evening that Mr. Narkom
+had gone back to town, did you not? Did he say if he'd be returning to
+Wimbledon to-night or not? I fancy he will be likely to, considering his
+interest in the Claverings, but did he say he would?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Said he'd be back somewheres between nine and ten, sir; that
+he'd drop in at the police station, and if there was a need for him, he
+said I'd find him there."
+
+"Right you are! Well, there _is_ a need for him, Dollops; for him and
+for the limousine, too. So off with you, my boy, and tell him to be
+here, at this spot, as quickly as he can; and to be ready when I call
+for him. Now then," said Cleek, opening the wall door, "off with you as
+fast as you can travel."
+
+For some minutes Cleek stood in deep thought, then he turned and walked
+quickly back into the house. He had made up his mind to beard Lord St.
+Ulmer in his room, and his quick brain was intent on a plan by which he
+should secure an entry. Three minutes later he stood outside the door
+and placed a bunch of extinguished matches at the foot of it, while he
+called softly but piercingly.
+
+"Lord St. Ulmer! Quick! _Quick!_ _Fire!_ The place is on fire."
+
+His heart pounded as he waited, for if the man were asleep his efforts
+would be fruitless. Suddenly, however, there came a faint sound to his
+straining ears, and again he whispered in that sibilant whisper:
+
+"Lord St. Ulmer, _fire_!"
+
+He did not have time to repeat it, for there came the sound as of an
+extremely agile man leaping from his bed, and another moment he heard
+the snick of an unfastened lock, then the door opened.
+
+Cleek waited not a second, his foot was in the narrow aperture, and he
+was through the door and had switched on the light before the other man
+had realized what had happened. Then he gave vent to a little low laugh
+of triumph as with his back against the closed door he surveyed the
+white-faced man who had retreated to the middle of the room.
+
+"Good evening! Citizen Paul, good brother Apache, so it is you, is it?"
+he said airily. "Let us have a quiet little understanding, _mon ami_.
+You need not be distressed. There is no fire. It is merely a bluff.
+What! You do not know me. But wait! Look!" The serene face writhed
+suddenly, and it was as if another man took his place. "Ever see a chap
+that looked like this, friend Paul, eh?"
+
+"God! The Cracksman!"
+
+"The identical party!" acknowledged Cleek blandly. "Come! I want to have
+a few minutes' talk with you, my friend, and---- Stop! Don't back away!
+Stop and face me. By God! you'll hang for last night's business if you
+don't!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY
+
+NEARING THE TRUTH!
+
+
+It was one o'clock when Mr. Maverick Narkom, pacing uneasily up and down
+the narrow strip of turf just outside the boundary wall of Wuthering
+Grange, saw the door at the wall angle flash open and shut again, and
+without so much as a murmur of sound looked up to find Cleek standing
+within a few paces of him.
+
+"My dear fellow! Gad, I never was so glad to see anybody in all my
+days," exclaimed the superintendent, swooping down on him in a little
+whirlwind of excitement. "Cinnamon! You'll never guess what's happened,
+Cleek, never! After all my instructions, those blundering idiots of
+local police were too late to catch Margot and her crew at Wimbledon,
+the house where young Raynor visited, as you wrote me. I went down
+myself directly Dollops brought me your note, but it was too late, the
+police had frightened her in some way----"
+
+"It does not matter," said Cleek calmly. "I have come to the end of the
+riddle."
+
+"The end?" gasped Mr. Narkom. "The end! Man alive, tell me who----"
+
+"Patience, my friend; perhaps I ought not to have said that yet, some
+few things remain to be discovered, but the first thing to do is to
+carry out the murderer's message before it is too late, or the letters
+get into the wrong hands."
+
+"Whose letters?" exclaimed Mr. Narkom, naturally bewildered.
+
+"The woman who lured Count de Louvisan, though that is not his name, to
+his death, Lady Clavering----"
+
+"Lady Clav---- Heavens, man, what possible motive could she have?"
+
+"We shall see, my friend, if my ideas are right. Call up Lennard and the
+limousine and let us go down to the cottage. With one more thread in my
+hand, and then to-night will see the knot unravelled."
+
+With this Mr. Narkom was fain to be content, and once in the car, the
+few minutes that elapsed before they reached Gleer Cottage were passed
+in silence. At the gate, when the limousine drew up, Cleek aroused
+himself from his reverie.
+
+"Mr. Narkom, get the constables stationed on duty near that room out of
+the way. Put them outside somewhere where they won't be able to see or
+hear what goes on at the back of the house. Then make an excuse of
+having to examine the body in reference to some new evidence that's just
+cropped up. I'll join you there in one minute."
+
+Mr. Narkom gave a nod of comprehension and vanished up the path, leaving
+his great ally to carry out his plans in his own inimitable fashion.
+
+That was the last the superintendent saw of him until full twenty
+minutes later when, with his customary soundlessness, he came up out of
+the gloom of the neglected garden, entered the rear door of the cottage,
+and joined him in the room where the body of the dead man still hung,
+spiked to the wall, with knees bent, head lolling, and the lantern in
+Narkom's hand splashing a grotesque shadow of him on the side of the
+chimney breast.
+
+Cleek walked over to that ghastly human crucifix and regarded the dead
+man bitterly, his lips puckered, and his whole expression one of
+unspeakable contempt.
+
+"So it has come to this at last, has it, De Morcerf?" he said, half
+audibly. "Well, was it worth the price, do you think? Peace to you, or,
+at least, such peace as you deserve. You've paid your scot and passed
+out eternally. As for the rest---- Mr. Narkom!"
+
+"Yes, old chap?"
+
+"I noticed last night, when I was down on my knees following the trail
+of the _Huile Violette_, that there was a section of the flooring which
+has evidently been raised lately, as it was fastened down with new
+nails. Locate the place for me--it's over their somewhere--and stand
+there while I do a little measuring and counting."
+
+Narkom moved over in the direction indicated, searched about for a time
+with a magnifying glass, and finally announced the discovery of the
+place he had been set to look for.
+
+"Good heavens above, old chap, how you notice things! Fancy your
+remarking that when you were looking for something totally different! I
+say what on earth are you doing?"
+
+"Measuring," replied Cleek, stepping off the distance between the spot
+where the body hung and that where Narkom knelt. "Three feet, one yard;
+three yards---- No, that won't do. 'Nine feet from the body' doesn't
+work out, so it's not that. Nine paces are impossible--room's too
+short--and nine boards---- Hum-m-m! That's poorer than the rest--doesn't
+go half the way. Clearly then, if my theory is correct, it's _not_ the
+body that's the starting point. How about the mantelpiece then? Let's
+have a try. Nine feet? No go! Nine boards, then? Oh, piffle! that's
+worse than ever. It leads off in a totally different direction. But stop
+a bit! These boards run up and down the room, not across it; and as it
+is undoubted that the measurement goes to the left, why, two and four
+make six. Hum-m-m! Six feet from the corner of the mantelpiece
+to----Hullo! that brings me exactly opposite to where you stand, doesn't
+it? And counting the board between us runs to--one, two, three, four,
+five, six, seven, eight, nine! Exactly nine boards across the room! Got
+it, by Jupiter! Three paces from the body bring one to the mantelpiece.
+And paces are usually designated in a diagram by X's. And nine boards
+across the room does the trick! Letters, she said, letters! That was the
+first clue. Letters that might fall into Margot's hands; and as that
+dead wretch was Margot's ally once upon a time, and might threaten to
+give the things over to her if his demands were not acceded to----
+Victoria! He will have hidden them there, unless I'm the biggest kind of
+an ass, and can no longer put two and two together!"
+
+Speaking, he moved rapidly across the room to the spot where Narkom
+stood, knelt, and in five minutes' time had the board up. Under it there
+lay something tied up in an old white silk handkerchief; and when the
+knots of that were unfastened three thick packets of yellow,
+time-discoloured letters, tied up with old neckties and frayed silken
+shoelaces, tumbled out upon the floor. One and all were addressed to "M.
+Anatole de Villon," and were written in a woman's hand.
+
+Cleek snapped the binding of the first bundle, looked at the signature
+appended to the letters, and then passed them over to Narkom.
+
+"There is the answer to the riddle," he said. "Poor soul--poor, poor
+unhappy soul! Under God, she shall suffer no more from this night on!
+And he would have sold her--sold her for money had he lived."
+
+Narkom made no reply in words. He simply glanced at the signature
+attached to the first letter, then sucked in his breath with a sort of
+shuddering sigh, and grew very, very still.
+
+"Let's get out!" said Cleek in a sharp, biting voice. "I can't breathe
+in the presence of that dead beast any longer. 'Who breaks pays!' Yes,
+by God, he does!"
+
+He turned and got out of the room, out of the house, and forged back
+through the darkness toward the spot where the limousine waited.
+
+Halfway up the lane Narkom overtook him.
+
+"Cleek, dear chap," he said, plucking him by the sleeve, "in the name of
+heaven, what is to be done now? The man is my friend. He believes in
+her; he loves her; and on my soul I believe that she loves him. Dear old
+chap, isn't there something better and nobler than human justice,
+something higher than the laws of man?"
+
+"Yes," said Cleek, "a great deal higher. There's God and there's
+humanity. The woman has paid and paid and paid, as erring women must
+always do; but if I can help it, she shall pay no longer. I tell you I
+will compound a felony that her secret may be kept."
+
+"And I'll assist you in it, old chap; I'll compound it with you!" said
+Narkom with quiet impressiveness. "Not because the man is my friend,
+Cleek, but because--oh, well, because the woman is a _woman_!"
+
+"And they have a hard road to travel at best," supplemented Cleek. "So
+let's give a sorely tried one a lift and a bit of sunlight on the long,
+dark way! You see how it came about, do you not? She made the
+appointment with him to meet her at Gleer Cottage because it was a
+lonely as well as a convenient spot. I dare say that when he learned
+the character of the place it struck him as being a safe one in which to
+hide the letters in case of any attempt being made to steal them from
+him. When he set out earlier than the appointed hour for that purpose,
+the--well, _the other party_ was on the watch and saw where they were
+put, yet didn't have an opportunity to remove them at once, so marked
+the clue down in that particular manner on the dead man's bosom, in
+order to tell Margot that she had been avenged and the letters hidden. I
+will tell you the story presently, but first let us get back to General
+Raynor."
+
+"Raynor!" ejaculated Mr. Narkom, "Surely it was not he who----"
+
+"Committed the murder," finished Cleek. "No, luckily for him, he found
+it already committed. No, it is these letters that he wanted. Here we
+are at the limousine at last, thank fortune. The Grange, Lennard, as
+fast as you can make it, my lad."
+
+Lennard got there in record time, depositing them at the gates in
+something less than a quarter of an hour later. And here Dollops, who
+was patiently waiting in the shadow of the wall, rose to meet them as
+they alighted.
+
+"Gawd's truth, gov'ner, is it you at last? I've been nigh off my biscuit
+wonderin' wot 'ad become of you, sir," he began as he approached; and
+would probably have said more but that Cleek interrupted him.
+
+"No time for talking now, Dollops," said he. "We are at the end of the
+trail and even moments count. Into the limousine with you, my lad, and
+let Lennard drive you over to Clavering Close. Ask for Miss Lorne when
+you get there, and give her this message. Say that she and Lady
+Katharine are to stop where they are until I come for them in person.
+Understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir. And when I've done that, wot next, if you please?"
+
+"Go home and go to bed; that's all. Good-night. Cut along!"
+
+The boy and the limousine were gone like a flash.
+
+"Come along, Mr. Narkom. Let us go and pay our respects to the General,"
+said Cleek; then he pushed open the gates and passed into the grounds,
+with the agitated superintendent trotting along by his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
+
+HOW THE TRUTH WAS TOLD
+
+
+In the closed and curtained library General Raynor paced up and down,
+silent, anxious, alone, his nerves raw, his face haggard, his eyes
+brightening with expectancy every time a breeze shook or bellied the
+draperies hanging over the open window, but dimming again when they
+sagged back into position without anything coming of their disturbance.
+
+"Waiting, you see," said Cleek in a whisper as he and Narkom emerged
+from the screen of the trees, and saw the chink of light made by the
+wind-blown curtains, and the shadow which moved back and forth and
+momentarily blotted it. "Poor old chap! He must be suffering torments.
+Come on! Step lightly! Make no noise until we are at the window's ledge.
+This is the end of his waiting at last!"
+
+Evidently the General was of that opinion, also, when, a few moments
+later, he heard a footstep on the gravel, and, halting to listen and to
+make sure, heard that footstep come on and up the terrace steps. With a
+quick intaking of the breath and a whispered, "Is it you? Is it you at
+last?" he moved fleetly to the window, twitched aside the curtains, and
+let the guarded light streak outward into the night.
+
+It fell full upon two men--Cleek and Narkom--standing within an arm's
+reach of the indrawn sashes and the divided drapery.
+
+A flash of sudden pallor, followed quickly by an angry flush, passed
+over the General's face as he saw and recognized Cleek.
+
+"Really, Mr. Barch, this is carrying your little pleasantries too far,"
+he rapped out in a voice that had a little tremble in it. "Will you
+allow me to say that we are not accustomed to guests who get up and
+prowl about the place at all hours of the night, and turn up suddenly at
+half-past one in the morning with uninvited acquaintances."
+
+"Quite so," said Cleek, "but the law is no respecter of any man's
+convenience, General."
+
+"The law? The law?" The General's sudden fright was pitiful. He dropped
+back a step under the shock of the thing, and all the colour drained out
+of his lips and cheeks. "What utter absurdity! What have I to do with
+the law? What have you, Mr. Barch?"
+
+"Cleek, if you want the truth of it, General--Cleek of the Forty Faces,
+Cleek of Scotland Yard. It's time to lay aside the mask of 'Philip
+Barch' forever."
+
+"Cleek? Cleek?" The General's cry was scarcely more than a shrill
+whisper. "God! You that man? You? And all the time you have been here in
+my house. Oh, my God! is this the end?"
+
+"Yes, I fear it is, General," said Cleek in reply, as he stepped past
+him and moved into the room. "If you dance to the devil's music in your
+youth, my friend, be sure he will come round with the hat in the days of
+your age! Last night one of the follies of your youth came to its
+inevitable end: last night a man was murdered who---- Stop! Doors won't
+lead a man out of his retribution. Come away from that one. The
+gentleman who is with me, General, is Mr. Maverick Narkom,
+superintendent of Scotland Yard. Isn't that enough to show you how
+impossible it is to evade what is to be? Besides, why should you want to
+get out of the room? It's not your life that's in danger, it's your
+honour; and there's no need to make any attempt to prevent either your
+wife or your son learning that when both are deep in the drugged sleep
+to which you sent them."
+
+"My God!" The General collapsed into a chair.
+
+"That's right," said Cleek. "Sit down to it, General, for it is likely
+to be a strength-sapping time. I've something to say to you; and Mr.
+Narkom has still something to hear. But first, for the sake of
+emergencies, and to have things handy if required, allow me to take a
+certain precaution."
+
+As he spoke he moved over to the window, and switched the curtains over
+them.
+
+"General," he said, facing about again, "the laws of society, the laws
+which prevail in civilized communities, are pretty rotten things. If a
+woman errs in her youth she pays for it all her whole life long--in
+sorrow, in tears, in never-ceasing disgrace. If the same law prevailed
+for both sexes, and men had to pay for the sins of their youth as women
+must for theirs, how many of them think you would be out of sackcloth
+to-day? Atonement is for the man, never for the woman. For Eve, youth
+must stand always as a time of purity, unspotted by a single sin. For
+Adam, it stands only as a time of folly that may be brushed aside and of
+sin that may be outlived. Probably you were no worse in the days of your
+youth, General, than ninety-nine men out of every hundred, but----" He
+gave his shoulders a shrug, and broke off.
+
+But of a sudden he reached round and took a packet of letters from the
+tail pockets of his evening coat, and threw them to the stricken man.
+
+"Carry those things to Lady Clavering and let her burn them with her own
+hands," he said. "They are letters which caused last night's crime--the
+letters of Mademoiselle Marise de Morcerf, a pretty school-girl, who
+wrote them in all innocence to Lieutenant Raynor out there in Malta, all
+those years ago. They were stolen by the man who was christened under
+the name of Anatole de Vellon, and died under that of Count Franz de
+Louvisan."
+
+The General plucked up the letters with a wild sort of eagerness and sat
+forward in his chair, breathing hard.
+
+"You know then, you know?" he said, in a shaking voice, the pallor on
+his face deepening until he was absolutely ghastly. "Is there, then, no
+keeping anything from you, that you are able to unearth secrets such as
+this--things that no one but our two wretched selves knew in all the
+world? And you know how that man, that De Louvisan, had blackmailed
+her?"
+
+"Yes, General, I know. But the source of my knowledge is by no means so
+miraculous as you seem to fancy. It came in part from those letters and
+in part from your guest, Lord St. Ulmer."
+
+"St. Ulmer? St. Ulmer? What can he know of this? He is in no way
+concerned. He is little better than a stranger to me, despite his
+relationship to my wife."
+
+"Nevertheless, he knows more than you fancy, General. He, too, was a
+visitor to Gleer Cottage last night. And he went, as you went, my
+friend, determined to be rid of the danger of Count Franz de Louvisan's
+tongue, even if he had to descend to crime to do it."
+
+"St. Ulmer! St. Ulmer!" repeated the General with an air of
+bewilderment. "Why should he? What reason could he have for dreading the
+man?"
+
+"A very good one, as you will see when I explain to you that St. Ulmer,
+as you call him, has no more right to the title than I myself!"
+
+"An impostor!" gasped both the General and Mr. Narkom with one voice.
+
+"Yes, an impostor," said Cleek quietly. "I recognized him directly I was
+able to get face to face with him. He was known as Paul the Panther,
+though Paul Berton is his name, an Apache, a boon companion of Margot,
+the queen of the Apaches, and of Anatole de Villon, a cousin of the
+greatest scoundrel in Paris. This man Paul had been valet to the real
+Lord St. Ulmer, probably engaged in Paris, and went with him to the
+Argentine. With him also Paul took the effects and credentials of
+another Apache, Ferdinand Lovetski, the maker of that special blacking,
+'Jetanola.' He had been killed for refusing to give up to the Apaches
+his little fortune, and accordingly, Anatole annexed it without the
+permission of Margot, and hence brought down on him her wrath. He
+managed to slip away with his master, and whether he had any hand in
+killing him in the Argentine, heaven alone knows. What is certain is
+that he decided to return to Europe and finally to England as Lord St.
+Ulmer, and in this he succeeded. The old solicitor had died. Both you
+and your wife had seen but little of St. Ulmer in later years, so that,
+armed with all the papers and his own quick wits, it was not so
+difficult as you would have imagined. Had it not been for the stray
+meeting with Anatole de Villon, who was himself masquerading here as the
+Count de Louvisan, all would have gone well. As it was, one rogue
+threatened the other, and De Louvisan held the trump cards. It was his
+plan to marry Lady Katharine, and St. Ulmer had to submit, for fear not
+only that he should be betrayed to the police as an impostor, but in
+case Anatole should give him up to Margot. He played on Lady
+Katharine's feelings, therefore, so as to make her give up young
+Clavering and marry the count. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, at
+the last minute De Louvisan quarrelled with him; he had some other
+plans, he said, connected with letters----"
+
+"Good heavens! I see now," gasped the General. "De Louvisan played a
+double game. Those letters were mine. He had contrived to steal them
+from me in Malta. There is really no harm in them, but Marise--Lady
+Clavering--and I, had fancied ourselves in love many years ago, and she
+was afraid, needlessly perhaps, that Sir Philip Clavering, who is the
+very soul of honour himself, would disown her and cut the friendship
+between him and myself. We had each found our true mates, and it was an
+unutterable shock to both to find that this wretch had threatened to
+inform Sir Philip, or else hand over the letters to Margot to publish at
+her will. I nearly went mad when Marise told me that she was going to
+meet him. I think I went off my head for a few minutes; at any rate, I
+did one of those unaccountable things for which people who have mental
+lapses are noted. It was after bedtime, long after, when the message
+arrived, and struck all my thoughts into a bewildering sort of chaos. I
+remember hanging up the receiver and turning to the door, but from that
+moment there is a blank until I found myself standing before the
+dressing mirror in my own room, not in the act of disrobing, as I ought
+properly to have been doing at that hour and in that place, but dressing
+myself as if for dinner! I think you are aware of the fact that I use
+black cosmetic on my moustache, Mr. Cleek? When that mental lapse passed
+and I came to myself, there I was with my hair freshly combed and in the
+very act of applying the cosmetic to my moustache. I don't know how I
+got into the room or when--everything is a blank to me.
+
+"A not unusual thing under the circumstances, General. These sudden
+shocks produce effects of that sort frequently. You were not really
+accountable, not really aware of what you did, or why--that, I suppose,
+is the explanation of how, when you came to think of going to the
+cottage and facing the man, you ran out of the house with the stick of
+cosmetic still in your hand. You did, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, although I was not aware of it until I arrived at the place."
+
+"Hum-m-m! So I imagined. And the A-string? How did you come to take
+that?"
+
+"The A-string, Mr. Cleek?"
+
+"Yes, the bit of catgut. Shall I be out in my reckoning, General, if I
+say that as you crept out of the house something fell either on your
+head or your hands, something which proved to be a long thick piece of
+catgut, and that, without realizing what you were doing, or why, you
+carried that, too, with you?"
+
+"Good heavens, how do you know these things? Nobody, nobody on God's
+earth could have told you that, Mr. Cleek, for no living soul was there.
+But that is exactly what did happen. When I got into the cottage and
+found Lady Clavering----"
+
+"With a pink gauze petticoat under a pale green satin dress?"
+
+"Yes. When I got there and found her in conversation with that wretch,
+why, those two things--the cosmetic and the catgut--were still in my
+hand. I had no use for them, of course, and as soon as I realized that I
+was holding them I threw them aside."
+
+"So I supposed," said Cleek. "And the assassin found them there,
+although he _might_ have had one of the articles upon his person; not
+likely, but he _might_, for he, too, uses it."
+
+"The assassin?" The General looked at him sharply. "You know that, too?
+Who is he? What was his motive? Why did he spike that body to the wall?"
+
+"We will come to that in good time, General," replied Cleek. "For the
+present let us stick to _your_ connection with the case, please. After
+you had given your promise to Lady Clavering not to return to Gleer
+Cottage, why, may I ask, did you break it and go back?"
+
+"I have told you in a measure, Mr. Cleek. I went back to make one last
+effort to move the man to pity. He must have been making use of the time
+for some purpose of his own, not counting upon my coming back, for as I
+returned to the house I caught the distant sound of a hammer being
+used, and he was savagely out of temper when he saw me. Springing at me
+like a wild animal, he cried out: 'Spying, were you? Damn you, I'll
+brain you before you can give away what you saw. She shan't get shut of
+me that way; nor shall you!' I ducked down under the sweep of the blow
+he aimed at me, so that it whizzed past my head and the impetus of it
+carried him half round; then, as he wheeled and gathered himself for a
+second stroke, I half straightened and came at him with an upper cut
+that landed squarely on the peak of his jaw and carried him off his
+feet. He went up and over, and the back of his head landed against the
+edge of the mantelpiece and stunned him. He dropped like a log. I
+thought for the instant I had killed him, but a moment's examination
+convinced me that he was only stunned; indeed, was already showing signs
+of reviving; and I should certainly have stopped to see the matter out
+but that I was sure I heard somebody moving in the garden, so as quickly
+as I could, I got out and flew for dear life. I saw nobody and I heard
+nobody all the way back to this house, and you can guess my surprise
+when this morning brought news of the tragedy. I should have said to
+myself that I had killed the man had he been found as I left him; but
+when I not only heard, but went and saw for myself, that he had been
+found nailed to the wall and marked with mysterious figures, I knew that
+some one else had slain him; and life has been a nightmare of terror and
+suspense ever since."
+
+"I can well believe it," said Cleek. "You have paid dearly for all your
+follies, General. But that is to be expected, for it is written, my
+friend, that he who breaks _must_ pay. The laws of God are no more fixed
+in that respect than are the laws of man; and I, as the instrument of
+those man-made laws----" He shrugged his shoulders, and threw out both
+hands with a sweeping and expressive movement. "Murder has been done,"
+he went on. "The law demands a life for a life, and my duty to the law
+is to hang the murderer of that man, even though the victim may have
+merited death twenty times over and the world be well rid of him.
+General"--he swung suddenly away from the chair against which he had all
+the time been leaning with his back to it and his face toward the
+room--"General, the law demands of the man-hunter that he shall be a
+thing of iron, cold, passionless, inflexible, a mere machine for the
+carrying out of its mandates, the probing of its riddles, the fulfilment
+of its retribution. It allows him to possess no private sentiments, to
+make no hero of a murderer, even though his crime be in the interest of
+others, and of itself brings good out of evil."
+
+The General looked up at him, awed and silent. A strange and terrible
+impressiveness was in Cleek's voice.
+
+"General," he went on after a brief pause, "the bringing to justice of
+the Count de Louvisan's murderer must inevitably entail the exposure of
+Lady Clavering's secret and yours. That I would spare both you and her,
+if I could. The anguish you two have suffered I would let be the only
+thing that comes out of this crime if it were mine to say; but I am the
+instrument of the law, and I must obey its dictates. I cannot shield the
+assassin, and I cannot shield you or her ladyship if this case has to be
+brought up before the courts. General, I know the murderer and I know
+the motive. It was a great one, that I grant you; and the carrying of it
+out was one of craft and cunning.
+
+"As you have guessed, it was Paul Berton, alias St. Ulmer, who committed
+both crimes; the killing of the keeper and De Louvisan. As you said just
+now, Anatole had been playing a double game, and he had threatened to
+throw over Lady Katharine and reveal the truth of the impostorship to
+Margot, thus earning his forgiveness from her for the stealing of that
+other property, and if possible marrying her and sharing her rule. St.
+Ulmer came to the cottage in those few minutes before you and Lady
+Clavering put in an appearance. He saw afterward what you did not
+see--namely, what De Louvisan did in those few minutes you were absent.
+He saw, too, that length of catgut which you dropped, and when you
+rushed out, leaving the man unconscious, Paul Berton, or St. Ulmer,
+flashed into the room, caught that up and strangled the fellow where he
+lay. He spiked him to the wall with the very hammer the hound had
+assailed you with, and he would have accomplished all he had set out to
+do but for an accident. De Louvisan, or Anatole, had taken up a board
+and hidden the letters beneath the floor. Paul had seen him do it and
+meant to get them. But the noise he had made, he fancied, had attracted
+the attention of either a constable or a Common keeper, for he heard the
+sound of some one stealing through the garden. That was Lady Katharine
+Fordham walking in her sleep, poor girl. He had no time to lose, so
+caught up the stick of cosmetic you had dropped, and scrawled those
+figures on the dead man's shirt----"
+
+"Their meaning, Cleek?" cried Narkom. "What was it?"
+
+"A very simple one. Part of the Apache cipher. I remembered it
+afterward, and translated it thus:
+
+  "2 X 4 X 1 X 2. Hiding X letters X Paul X Hiding
+
+"You see he meant that if Margot should arrive on the scene, she should
+know that it was he, Paul, who had avenged the gang and hidden the
+letters. By this he meant to win his own pardon from Margot. As it
+happened, she had already taken fright and left the country. The numbers
+counted to nine, and I reckoned that Paul, noting this fact, must have
+trusted to luck to Margot being sharp enough to take it as a measurement
+of some kind. I took it to be nine boards, and was right, as you know.
+
+"He would probably have gone back for the letters afterward, but he had
+no time; he fled across the Common, headlong into the arms of the
+Common keeper, whom he shot at and knocked senseless, making use of the
+man's clothing, as we know. These he buried later in the old ruin, and
+there you will find them, General."
+
+An exclamation burst from the lips of General Raynor, followed by the
+sound of something more startling, that of a pistol shot.
+
+"God! What was that!" the General breathed in a frightened whisper at
+the sound of the explosion.
+
+"The end of De Louvisan's murderer, General, I hope, and the everlasting
+shutting of the door on Lady Clavering's secret and yours," said Cleek.
+"Come quickly, before the servants arrive on the scene."
+
+He led the way out of the room, and up the stairs to where was Lord St.
+Ulmer's room. Cleek opened the door with the key which had evidently
+reposed in his own pocket. A strange sight met their eyes. It was
+evident that St. Ulmer, or Paul Berton, had been left handcuffed and
+bound by ropes to the bedpost, but he had managed to evade his bondage
+sufficiently to get to a drawer in which must have been a loaded
+revolver, and he had thus set himself free.
+
+"Let the dead past bury its dead," said Cleek quietly. "The world need
+only know that one impostor killed another, and finally shot himself
+when the law discovered the truth."
+
+He bent down and swiftly removed the handcuffs from the still figure,
+and the General gave vent to a deep sigh of relief just as the startled
+servants came flocking up the staircase.
+
+The riddle of the night had been solved, and their secret lay buried in
+the grave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an hour afterward. In the seclusion of the General's study, he
+and Narkom and Cleek sat talking over the events of the night.
+
+"You must not accord me too much honour, General," said Cleek. "For
+after all I did not ferret out the entire truth until I came face to
+face with Paul Berton, who told me the facts, under force, it is true.
+It was, as I have already explained, he who killed the poor Common
+keeper when that unfortunate man interrupted his headlong dash for
+freedom. Then, General, borrowing a leaf from the book of a certain
+person known as the 'Vanishing Cracksman,' with whom he had had some
+dealings in other days, he leaped upon the unfortunate man, beat him to
+the ground, and hastily robbed him of his uniform. You know the rest:
+the assassin's blows were perhaps harder than he had intended, and so
+another life was added to the list. I confess I was puzzled at first by
+Lady Katharine's part in the affair and the ermine cloak, as I knew
+there were at least two women on the Common that night. But I managed to
+look into Mrs. Raynor's room in one of my rambles, and there I saw an
+ermine cloak soiled at the edges. The maid told me, unconscious of doing
+either harm or good, that she had just fetched it from Lady Katharine's
+room, as she had borrowed it a couple of days ago. I had already made up
+my mind after overhearing a certain interview between the lovers, that
+Lady Katharine must have acquired the habit of walking in her sleep, and
+so that part of the mystery was made clear. But I am afraid I have given
+you an unpleasant time, General, and I have had to spy about a good
+deal. However, I think we may agree with the immortal Shakespeare that
+after all, 'All's well that ends well.'"
+
+He turned and put out his hand suddenly, and the General, with a little
+choking sound, put his own into it and breathed hard. There was a
+curious misty something lurking in his eyes.
+
+Cleek smiled.
+
+"Good-night!" he said softly, "and good-bye. Mr. Narkom and I will motor
+back to town, and perhaps on our way will make a point of calling at
+Clavering Close and break the news to Lady Katharine of her erstwhile
+father's death. She cannot grieve deeply, poor girl, for that which she
+has never known--a father's devotion, or a father's love; but it will
+end her suspense. Good-night, General, once more."
+
+He waited a brief moment, and their eyes met in a look of perfect
+understanding; then with a nod to Narkom, who was standing in the
+background watching them, he spun on his heel and went out into the
+night whose riddle he had solved, leaving behind him that which is above
+all earthly things: a perfect peace and a still greater gratitude.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Riddle of the Night, by Thomas W. Hanshew
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