She stopped abruptly, and her voice seemed to die away in her throat; and when she spoke again it was in a sort of panic.
“Mr. Cleek!” she cried, “Mr. Cleek! What is it? What’s the matter? Good heavens, Mawson, has the man gone out of his mind?”
In the circumstances the question was an excusable one. A moment before, she had seen Cleek walk in the most casual manner to the chair where the lace-clouded negligée hung, had seen him pick it up to look at the chair seat under it, and was collectedly proceeding with the account of the events of yesterday, when, without hint or warning, he suddenly yapped out a sound that was curiously like a dog that had mastered the trick of human laughter, flung the negligée from him, dropped on his knees, and was now careering round the room like a terrier endeavouring to pick up a lost scent—pushing aside tables, throwing over chairs, and yapping, yapping.
“Cleek, old chap!” It was Narkom that spoke, and the hard, thick hammering of his heart made his voice shake. “Good lud, man! in the name of all that’s wonderful——”
“Let me alone!” he bit in, irritably. “Of all the asses! Of all the blind, mutton-headed idiots!” then laughed that curious, uncanny laugh again, scrambled to his feet and made a headlong bolt for the door. “Wait for me—all of you—in the music room,” he threw back from the threshold. “Don’t stir from it until I come. I want that fellow Jennifer! I want him at once!”
And here, turning sharply on his heel with yet another yapping sound, he bolted across the passage, ran down the staircase like an escaping thief, and by the time the others could lock up the boudoir and get down to the music room, there wasn’t a trace of him anywhere.
CHAPTER XXIII
It was a full half hour later, and Sir Mawson and Lady Leake and Mr. Maverick Narkom were in the throes of the most maddening suspense, when the door of the music room flashed open and flashed shut again, and Cleek stood before them once more—quite alone still, but with that curious crooked smile which to Narkom stood for so much, looping up the corner of his mouth and mutely foreshadowing the riddle’s spectacular end.
“Cleek, dear chap!” The superintendent’s voice was sharp and thin with excitement. “You’ve found out something, then?”