"I? Oh, nothing in particular. There we are at the lodge gates at last; and here's our man. Come in, bonny boy, come in."
Geoff came up out of the shadow of the two big trees at the entrance and moved swiftly toward the gates.
"Wait a bit," went on Cleek. "I've got a skeleton key handy, and in two shakes of a ram's tail——Told you so! In with you, my lad. Miss Lorne's here with me; and if Loisette wasn't a dreamer and I'm not a fool, you'll be the happiest chap in England to-night. Sh-h-h! don't speak. Walk on your toes, take to the grass, keep in the shadow of the hedge, and get over there to that shrubbery as quickly and as noiselessly as you can. With you in a minute, my boy."
He was. Stopping just long enough to relock the gates and to motion Ailsa to accompany him, he travelled like a fleet-moving shadow across the lawn, and was again with Geoff Clavering.
"Well, here I am as you requested, you see, Mr. Barch," said Geoff. "I don't know what in the world you meant when you told me that thing over the telephone; but whatever it is that's going to make Kathie and me as happy as you promised, I'm ready enough to hear it, God knows."
"Yes, God does know; you're right there, my boy. He knows that Lady Katharine did call you into Gleer Cottage last night, and did send you into the room where that dead man's body hung; and—oh, yes, she did, Miss Lorne. He'll tell you that just as he told me; won't you, Clavering, eh?"
"Yes," said Geoff, and did forthwith, giving all the details just as he had given them to Cleek hours earlier in the General's famous ruin.
"Will you believe now, Miss Lorne?" said Cleek, and then paused and gave a little, shaky, half-suppressed laugh. For, of a sudden, a cuckoo's note had risen softly over the stillness, sounding thrice in rapid succession, as if the bird had mistaken the moon's glamour for the sheen of day dawn, and had sent forth this untimely call.
Hearing it, Cleek knew that what he had so fervently hoped might come to pass really had come to pass, and that the theory of Loisette was about to be vindicated.
"Or, if you will not," he said, taking up the sentence just where the bird note had broken off, "come with me and find proof of it for yourself. Come quickly. Hold your breath. Walk on your toes. Don't make a sound on your lives. This way. Quickly. Come."