Speaking, he led the way up the drive, followed by a wide-eyed Dollops and a panting Superintendent who had not long finished his breakfast of bacon and eggs, and had missed his usual ten minutes' perusal of the newspaper after it.
Jarvis opened the door to them, bowing low over Cleek's cap as the latter proffered it, and giving Dollops a friendly wink behind his master's back as he led them into the little ante-room and went to summon his mistress.
As they sat waiting, Cleek saw Tavish, clad in riding-boots and trousers, and making a fine figure of a man, swing past the half-open door. Cleek nodded to him as he glanced in.
"Good morning. I say—come in a moment, won't you? I've got a perfectly astonishing piece of news!"
Then, as Tavish, with a nod and a smile, came into the tiny room, seeming, in his enormous stature, to fill up every nook and corner of it, and shook Cleek firmly by the hand, that gentleman leaned a little forward and whispered something in his ear.
Mr. Narkom saw the flare of eye and the slackening of jaw which betoken amazement as Tavish opened his mouth to speak. But Cleek held up a silencing hand.
"Hush! I don't want the thing made public yet, y' know, my dear chap. Only I thought perhaps you'd like to have a look in and see the final round-up of the villains. Take a back seat, you know. There's no harm in that. And I've the most amazing bit of evidence by me which I've traced it all to. Stolen will among other things. Bring it home to her as smart as you please. Ought to be worth watching when you see her face."
"Gad!—yes." Tavish struck one hand into the open palm of the other, and his nice face went grim. "The woman's a devil from the first letter to the last. And if you knew the things she's done to my future wife—Johanna McCall—well, it fair makes a man's blood boil. I'd tighten the noose round her neck, I can promise you, and with my own hands, too. The earth is well rid of her kind."
"In which I profoundly agree. And—hello! here's Miss Duggan. At half-past ten, then. I'll make arrangements for you to slip in unnoticed. It's going to be as sensational as a first-rate London melodrama. And—not a word, old chap?"
"Not one of 'em."