Of course there was no truth in the cock-and-bull story of the Peasant Girl—that went without saying. But that it had been used as a "blind" to cover the real perpetrators of the crime was evident to his mind. And why two of them? For in each case death would have been caused instantaneously. He looked down at the spinning wheel standing there in the recess of the window, and tried to link the thing up with it. But there seemed no peg to hang a clue upon there. Obviously the thing had been "worked" with just such an idea to disguise its real purport.
Then he thought of the letters that he had found in the desk, hidden away and yellowed with Time's fingers, and tied about with faded ribbon. And of a sudden something flashed across his face which, Mr. Narkom watching him as a cat does a mouse and knowing to a nicety what those expressions so often meant, made that worthy gentleman positively jump with excitement.
Cleek smiled at him and shook a head over his eagerness. Then he turned to the rest of them.
"No need now to prolong this unpleasant and unhappy interview," he said quietly. "Mr. Duggan has given his parole, and also the worthy Captain over there. The Yard's men will do the rest. But I must renew my request that none of you leaves this house to-day, or goes beyond the walls of the garden, unless under special permission from Mr. Narkom or myself. Just for to-day, my friends. By to-morrow perhaps the riddle may be solved, or its end in sight. But for the next twenty-four hours I must beg your assistance, every one of you, to bring it to a successful and definite close."
His request had an immediate and almost eager response. For there was not one of that little band of anxious people who was not glad to be released from the unpleasant and searching questionings of the Law, as represented by this bland gentleman of the fine manner and the polished ways, who seemed, indeed, as good as they were (if not better), and who met them upon the grounds of an equality which was hardly to be expected from one of his calling.
Maud and the Captain walked away together conversing in low voices, their faces grave. Ross, Cynthia Debenham, and Catherine Dowd—lagging a little behind, and favouring Cleek with a look of venomous hatred cast back at him over her shoulder as she passed through the open door—turned toward the terrace, where they all sat down and discussed the thing from every point of view within their reach, and came to no definite ending at all; while Lady Paula, summoning Miss McCall with a regal gesture, rose from her chair, bowed charmingly to each of the two men left in the room, and withdrew to the safety and peace of her own boudoir.
When the door had shut upon the last of them, Cleek began pacing the room excitedly, pulling at his chin and gnawing at his lower lip, which gestures brought Mr. Narkom to the conclusion that he was indulging in a "jolly good think!"
"There's more in those letters than meets the eye," Cleek said aloud, apostrophizing the wall-paper and the fireplace in turn. "H'm. Not a doubt of it. 'Jeannette.' Something Scotch in the flavour of that, eh, Mr. Narkom?... Yes, that's my opinion, too. It wouldn't take a hammer and a nail to drive that fact home, anyhow. And the date of 'em some seventeen years back.... But it's the 'humming sound' which gets me, I swear. Can't account for that, anyhow. Might be a dynamo, but there isn't a dynamo in the place, and no need for it, either. Plain stabbing and shooting upon the face of it. We'll go for a prowl this afternoon, old friend, and see what new lands we can discover."
"All right. I'm your man, Cleek—the same as always," returned Mr. Narkom affectionately, as he slapped Cleek on the shoulder with his broad hand, and then slipped it about his ally's neck and kept pace with him up and down the narrow room.
"Anything that's going—with you in it—will find me on the spot, too. I'm a bit of a slow-mover, I know—but you're such a lightning-bug of a creature that there's not a soul on earth can keep pace with you. Have you looked into that laundry-bill question you were dickering about a while ago?"