My Dear Cleek:
A most amazing case—probably the most amazing you have yet tackled—has just cropped up, and I am all eagerness to have you hear the astonishing details as expeditiously as possible. The client is one Captain Morrison, a retired army officer living solely on his half-pay; so the reward—if any—must of necessity be small. His daughter, Miss Mary Morrison, a young and extremely attractive girl, is involved in the amazing affair, and it is at her earnest appeal that the matter has been brought to my notice. As the captain is in such weak health that a journey of any distance is out of the question, I shall ask you to meet me at Wandsworth Common, where he lives. Will you, therefore, be at 17 Sunnington Crescent, Wandsworth, this afternoon between the hours of three and four? The house is the residence of a Mrs. Culpin, widow of one of my Yard men who was killed last autumn. I am wiring her to expect you. But, knowing your reluctance in the matter of any clue to your identity being circulated, I have given you the name you adopted in the Bawdrey affair: "George Headland." I have also taken the same precaution with regard to Captain Morrison, leaving
you to disclose your identity or not, as you see fit, after you have interviewed him and the other persons connected with this extraordinary affair.
Yours, etc.,
Maverick Narkom.
Cleek did not even glance at the afternoon paper which Mrs. Culpin had so considerately left him. Instead, he walked to the open window, through which the summer sunshine was streaming, and, with his hands loosely clasped behind his back, stood looking out thoughtfully at the groups of merry children who were romping on the not far distant common and making the air melodious with their happy laughter. And so he was still standing when, some ten or a dozen minutes later, the door behind him opened and Narkom walked into the room.
"Well, here I am at last, you see, my dear fellow," said the superintendent, crossing the floor and shaking hands with him. "Ripping day, isn't it? What are you doing, admiring the view or taking stock of Mrs. Culpin's roses?"
"Neither. I was speculating in futures," replied Cleek, glancing back at the sunlit common, and then glancing away again with a faintly audible sigh. "How happy, how care-free they are, those merry little beggars, Mr. Narkom. What you said in your letter set my thoughts harking backward, and ... I was wondering what things the coming years might hold for them and for their parents. At one time, you know, that fellow Philip Bawdrey was as innocent and as guileless as any of those little shavers; and yet in the after years he proved a monster of iniquity, a beast of ingratitude, and—— Oh, well, let it pass. He paid, as thankless children always do pay under God's good rule. I wonder what his thoughts were when his last hour came."
"It did come, then?"