"Come over to the cottage door. Look there. See that thing in the corner? By the sofa there—with the quilt half over it?"
"Mean the box with the wire netting over the front?"
"Exactly. That's what I did it for. I wanted to see if there was such a thing here. It was necessary to get down on the floor to see it, and there it was."
"But what on earth——?"
Mr. Narkom did not bother to complete the sentence. It would have been useless. Cleek had walked away and left him—going back to the place where the duke and the others were standing.
"I think, Duke, it will be as well to return to the vicarage," he said, "and leave the rest of this unpleasant business to the law alone. I am sorry, gentlemen, that I have put you all to the useless trouble of coming out here. I should not have done so had I known or even guessed of Carstairs' act. Still, it doesn't matter. You know the result; you know the game. The robbery of the gold service has been prevented, the criminals unmasked, and—that's all. I think we may be satisfied that the riddle has been solved."
"Do you? Well, I'm blest if I do, then!" exclaimed Captain Weatherley. "There is one little point which you decidedly have not cleared up, if you don't mind my saying so. That thing!" Here he flung out his hand and made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the bell-tower, from which the discordant clang had all the time been sounding. "How about that, please? Who has been managing that little dodge, and—how?"
"Oh, the ghost, you mean?"
"Yes, the ghost, the power—the thing, or whatever it is, that rings bells without ropes, and yet—Uppingham, Essex, look round, look round, for Heaven's sake. It has got beyond mere sound alone—it has become visible now—visible! Look, there's a light there—a light!"
"Yes," said Cleek. "It appeared for the first time last night. It gave me quite a shock for the minute, until I remembered."