While talking he had led the way down one passage and up another, till they were in the actual gallery from which the famous statue had so mysteriously vanished. It stood out in one of the wings of the Institute, its steel-barred windows on each side, being some thirty or forty feet clear from the ground. The walls were lined with pictures, not one of which obviously had been moved, and it seemed impossible for secret entry to have been made either during the day or the night.
The empty pedestal stood some six feet away from the wall, against which stood some heavy grouped figures and examples in plaster of bas-relief.
For a few minutes Cleek walked aimlessly round and round the gallery, his eyes dull and heavy, his face stupidly blank in expression.
Suddenly he looked up at the exquisitely painted ceiling and gave an inane little chuckle that caused the secretary to look at him in surprise.
"I see," he exclaimed. "I wondered where it came from; but I suppose you have had the ceiling repaired—eh, what?"
If ever a man looked puzzled, it was the secretary.
"Ceiling repaired?" he echoed. "Really, Mr. Headland, I can't understand you. What on earth makes you think that?"
Mr. Headland pointed to two or three flecks of powdered plaster, obviously dropped from the ceiling above, but the secretary only gave a little sniff of contempt.
"Vibration of the traffic," he exclaimed. "No one's been near the ceiling." He turned suddenly. "Ah, here is Thompson. If you think you will want that address——?" He was clearly not very taken with the deductive powers of Mr. Headland, and he showed it very plainly.