"Please yourself," was the laughing reply. "I shall want you to keep an eye on the Wynnes, though. There's something there I'm not quite sure of——"
Dollops showed a sudden outburst of joy.
"You trust 'em to me," he said, excitedly. "I always did say as 'ow that young party was up to no good, but I'll look after 'em all right. You leave 'er to me."
With a little nod, Cleek turned back and Dollops sped off on his errand. At the beginning of the lane, however, his mind always on the alert, he looked back, and like his master a few minutes before, he had the surprise of his life. The field was one unbroken seat of grass and gorse bushes. Cleek, too, had disappeared!
For a moment Dollops stood stunned by the shock. Then he moved as if to turn back, but he had had his orders and as there had been neither sight nor sound of anything suspicious he turned once more, and ran as hard as he could in the direction of the village.
It was some half an hour later when the limousine drew up outside the door of Cheyne Court, and Dollops hopped out of it.
"Gawd send 'e's safe," said he, his teeth chattering like a monkey's.
"It gave me the fair 'ump, Mr. Narkom, when I looks back and 'e was gone, vanished clean off the map, so to speak. Wot if 'e ain't 'ere, after all? S'pose those devils, Pentacle gangers they was fer sure, nipped 'im? I ought never to 'ave left 'im! That's wot I oughtn't to 'ave done. An' if anything 'appens to 'im it'll be all my blooming fault!"
The Superintendent frowned, though to tell the truth, he was as anxious as Dollops himself over Cleek's strange disappearance. He jumped out of the vehicle in Dollops' wake and entered the house.