His face was grim and Mr. Narkom looked up into it almost breathless.
"What is it, old chap; tell me?" he gasped. "What have you discovered?"
Cleek smiled.
"This man is the murderer of Elsie McBride, the old wardrobe seller of Crown Court, so her murder will not have gone long unavenged!"
"But—how—are you sure?" said the startled Superintendent.
"Quite sure, my friend," was the reply. "Whatever other disguises a man may assume, as we know, there is no escape from the irrefutable proof of finger-prints. Here——"
He lifted up the dead hand, and with a magnifying glass in his own, brought the thumb before Mr. Narkom's gaze.
"Now compare these thumb and finger marks with these which are a copy of those found on that dagger with which the poor woman was killed. You will see that they are identical. I'll nip off to town now and see whether I can get the other old woman down here to identify this man. I think, too, when we have discovered the motive for this murder we shall have gone far to have found out the reason why Lady Margaret was abducted. But that remains to be seen."
And afterward, when the turn of events had crowded even more important matters from his mind, Mr. Maverick Narkom remembered these words.
Meanwhile a search of the house had not revealed the hiding place of the famous jewels, and Mr. Shallcott, who was the first to come down and investigate after he had read the surprising facts in his morning paper, was full of remorse that they should have been lost.