"Through a secret entrance hidden in the wall, if yer wants ter know!" replied James Blake, sullenly. "Might as well know it first as last. There's a hole in the dried-up moat what leads to the foundations and I happened to discover it when I was hiding there. So I nipped in and then stumbled upon Lady Margaret, lying in the cellar, and saw it was a chance to get even with Sammy. But he only laughed at me when I said I'd got her and told me I'd never find the jewels where he'd hidden 'em. Blast 'im, I never have. But we came to blows then and he clutched at the scarf I held and nicked a piece out of it, just as he fell, then I scuttled upstairs and threw it back into the girl's room—and that's all the blooming story."
"Back into her room?" ejaculated Sir Edgar, furiously, at the end of this recital. "So he threw suspicion on my dear girl. Well, I'll wring his damned neck for him as a little return for his trouble!"
He leapt forward, but Cleek caught at his shoulder, and with a smile drew him back.
"A very creditable performance, my friend," said he, serenely, "but I don't think I should carry it out. As Lady Margaret herself suggested the law will take its course and mete out full justice. Meanwhile, there is still more work to be done. This part of the case is clear enough. This man, James Blake is his right name, although we have all known him as Gunga Dall, is the head of the Pentacle Club, and the murdered man Sam, his brother, was also a member of the gang. As you see, it has been a deeply laid plot on their part to secure that ill-fated 'The Purple Emperor,' and as I have long imagined, the Hindoo priests are still on its track. When I went up to London to find out about James Blake, I learned by chance of the existence of this brother and then I knew what had happened. There is no doubt, as I shall prove to you, that Sam had made ingenious arrangements to get the jewels safely away before the return of his brother, and it was the knowledge of a safe hiding place which led him to be defiant, and that was obviously the cause of his death.
"However, there is one thing to console ourselves with, and that is that he but anticipated the law. There is little doubt that he was the murderer of Miss Cheyne, and also the perpetrator of another crime in the East of London—the murder of an 'ole clo' woman. He stabbed her to death for a bundle of second-hand clothing and a wig. That shows the nature of the man, doesn't it? But that is the way he obtained the clothing to dress his part, and the little second-hand clothes dealer's case passed out of the public eye under the screen of 'found murdered by person or persons unknown.' But her death and Miss Cheyne's are avenged. We have Mr. James Blake to thank for that!"
He paused a moment and looked about him at the expectant faces of the audience, then bent and whispered something to Mr. Narkom, who nodded vigorously and spoke to the Coroner.
Then Cleek spoke again.
"I don't think there is anything more to be done now so far as the public is concerned," he said in a clear voice which penetrated to the ends of the crowded room, "and I think they may safely consider the case at an end. I shall be glad, therefore, if they will leave this room as quickly and as quietly as possible."
They left forthwith, as the prisoner was led away, but once out in the spring sunshine, it came to them suddenly that that very clever gentlemen had left off at the most critical point—and that the hiding place of the famous Cheyne Court jewels had never been revealed.