He crossed the road and struck into the woods, his face relaxed from its tenseness, and swung across country in the direction of the Manor House. There was still one link missing in his chain, and he wanted it quite finished before he met Mr. Narkom.
Reaching the house through the trees, he searched carefully along the ground on the side on which gave the window of the gallery, and in a very few moments leaned forward with a little cry of satisfaction. His case was complete.
He turned swiftly back, but as he passed silently through the heavy undergrowth, the sound of snapping twigs brought him up short. Then he moved on with indrawn breath. Someone was shadowing him without a doubt. Well, if necessary, he could make a run for it, but the path was indistinct—— And just then came a snarl and a spring from somewhere behind him. A thick cloth was thrown rapidly over his head, two arms like vises closed about his struggling shoulders, and he was carried, fighting for dear life, away from the Manor House and the scene of the murder. He was conscious of being forced inside some building and here a voice greeted him the sound of which sent a little dagger of fear stabbing its way into his heart.
"The Cracksman at last!" shrilled the voice, excitedly, and Cleek knew, for the time being, that the game was up. He was here in the shadow of these woods, and in the power of the accursed Apaches themselves—alone and helpless! A door closed behind them, bolts were shot, the cloth torn from his head, and he saw before him, in the interior of a half-ruined cottage, three of the best-known scoundrels in Paris, men he had known only too well in the past. "At last, nom de Dieu, we have you!" cried one as he seized a rope and bound Cleek's struggling hands and feet. "Margot shall hear of this, I promise you! Margot, who thirsts for your blood for your escape from her as we thirst for the money she will pay us! Where is this precious 'Rose of Fire'? That is what we are after. No foolish priest shall have a jewel which we are after. Where is it, pig of a cracksman, where, I say?"
"Where I have failed to find it, that I can promise you!" replied Cleek in as level a voice as he could muster under the circumstances. "It has wholly disappeared."
"You lie!" screamed Dubois, furiously. "You lie! You know well where it is concealed. Do you not always find the answers to the cases propounded to you? But we shall see what we shall see. A touch of fire may loosen your tongue, cochon! Come, mes amis!"
Turning, they swarmed into a tiny kitchen, and Cleek could see them throwing paper and wood into the range. Luckily for him the wood was damp, and the chimney smoky from disuse. He writhed his hands to and fro in their ropes. It was not for nothing that those old days in Paris had been lived. He knew a thing or two about knots which would teach these devils something. A tug, a twist, and at last one hand was free. The other followed in a jiffy. Quickly and soundlessly he worked upon the rope about his feet, while the snarling Apaches cursed and swore at the fire which would not burn. In another moment he was free. But he stood still, awaiting his opportunity. Then of a sudden there came to his ears a sound that made his heart leap. He did not even know he was near a road, and yet there sounded the soft purr of the Scotland Yard limousine—he would have known it among a thousand! He did not stop to think how his plight could have become known, he simply leapt for the window, and making a cup of his hands, shouted as loudly as his lungs would permit, "All right, boys! Well played! Get round to the back! They're in the kitchen!"
The trick worked like magic. He heard the car come to a grinding stop, saw the leaping figures of three Apaches dart like frightened rats across the little kitchen floor, and in the twinkling of an eye every man of them had vanished into the wood beyond. With a bound Cleek was out of the door, onto a road, into the limousine, with a very excited Dollops at his side, and death was once more behind him.
"How did you know?" he said, curiously, as the car went speeding down the road under the guidance of Lennard.
Dollops heaved a heavy sigh.