"Amateur fiddlesticks!" blurted out the young duke, with a short, derisive laugh. "Fellow who doesn't know any better than to look for jewels that are not lost, and look for them on a lady's fingers at that! By Jove, you know, Glossop, if it had been my wife!—— But there! you easy-going fellows will swallow anything for the sake of keeping peace. Well, Mr. Crime Investigator, found out who did it yet, eh?"
"Perhaps not exactly," replied Cleek, moving over toward the sofa; "but I've found out who didn't do it, and that's something."
"Oh, yes, decidedly!" flung back the duke, with another sarcastic laugh. "Wonderfully brainy, that! Not more than two or three million people in Great Britain who could tell you that Napoleon didn't do it, and the Black Prince didn't do it, and it's twopence to a teacup that Shakespeare hadn't any hand in it at all. You'll be out-Cleeking Cleek by the time you've sucked the head off that cane. Well, whatever other amazing thing have you 'unearthed'? What's next—eh?"
"Only this," said Cleek quietly, making a feint of dropping his cane and stooping to recover it. Then he moved like a quick-leaping animal. There was a sharp metallic "click-click," a frightened scream from Mrs. Glossop, a half-indignant, wholly excited roar from the captain, and the duke, glancing toward them, saw that they both had got to their feet in a sort of panic and were standing there, white, quaking, and handcuffed together.
"Good Lord!" began the duke. "Look here, Mr. Narkom—I say! This idiot's out of his head."
"More than out of it!" swung in the captain furiously. "To people in our position! Good God! I can stand a fool as far as any man can, Mr. Narkom, but when it comes to this—— Look here, you, Mr. Woodhead, or Thickhead, or whatever your infernal name is——"
"Call a spade a spade, my dear captain. The name is Cleek, if you can't remember my other."
"Cleek!" The duke repeated it with a sort of gulp; the captain spat it out as though it were something red-hot, and the captain's wife merely whined it and fainted.
"Yes, Captain—Cleek! Oh, I've got you, my friend, got you foul!" said Cleek in reply. "All but ruined by the failure of the gold reefs and the milling and mining companies last autumn, weren't you, and have been playing a bluff game and living on your credit ever since? A pretty little scheme you two beauties hatched up between you to get the old duchess into your clutches, to rob her of the Siva stones, and to have Mrs. Glossop and your Hindu ally slip over to India with them and claim the reward before the truth of your financial condition leaked out! Oh, yes; I've got you, my friend, got you tight and fast.