"Cleaning, sir? No, indeed. He never touched them last night, that I'll swear."
Cleek bent down lower. "Ah, I see my mistake, a little cigarette ash, nothing of importance. Well, Calvert, I see there is nothing more to be gained here. Tell Mr. Narkom I am ready for him, will you?"
"Certainly, sir," and Calvert turned as if glad to make his escape.
Had he waited another minute he would have seen Cleek pounce swiftly on the little feathery yellow dust on the table, gather it up, and transfer it to his note-book, and when Mr. Narkom had come upstairs, it was to find his famous ally gazing thoughtfully out of the window, his face serene, as if there were no such gruesome things as a murdered man and a withered skeleton behind him.
"Mr. Narkom," he said, when he had followed the Superintendent downstairs and out into the country road, where the limousine was waiting, and as he stepped into it, "I want you to wait here for me. I've got an idea that death takes strange shapes, and Mr. Winton recognized his foe rightly, though too late. I want to poke about for myself a little farther afield. Give me a couple of hours, and if I am right, my friend, the riddle is at an end. What's that? A clue? I want to find out which sticks the best to metal, glue or soap." With this Mr. Narkom had to be content, and only Lennard, at the wheel of the car, heard the direction to drive to South Kensington Museum as hard as he could go.
[CHAPTER XIX]
THE WINGED MESSENGER OF DEATH
That Lennard did go at considerable speed was very evident, for it was under two hours when the limousine, gray with dust, raced once more into Grays High Street, and pulled up in front of the solitary inn, the Royal Arms. Here Mr. George Headland, after giving some directions to a weedy youth of dejected mien, who had sat beside him in the car, flashed the door open and shut again, and vanished up the village street.