"We shall see, my friend, if my ideas are right. Call up Lennard and the limousine and let us go down to the cottage. With one more thread in my hand, and then to-night will see the knot unravelled."
With this Mr. Narkom was fain to be content, and once in the car, the few minutes that elapsed before they reached Gleer Cottage were passed in silence. At the gate, when the limousine drew up, Cleek aroused himself from his reverie.
"Mr. Narkom, get the constables stationed on duty near that room out of the way. Put them outside somewhere where they won't be able to see or hear what goes on at the back of the house. Then make an excuse of having to examine the body in reference to some new evidence that's just cropped up. I'll join you there in one minute."
Mr. Narkom gave a nod of comprehension and vanished up the path, leaving his great ally to carry out his plans in his own inimitable fashion.
That was the last the superintendent saw of him until full twenty minutes later when, with his customary soundlessness, he came up out of the gloom of the neglected garden, entered the rear door of the cottage, and joined him in the room where the body of the dead man still hung, spiked to the wall, with knees bent, head lolling, and the lantern in Narkom's hand splashing a grotesque shadow of him on the side of the chimney breast.
Cleek walked over to that ghastly human crucifix and regarded the dead man bitterly, his lips puckered, and his whole expression one of unspeakable contempt.
"So it has come to this at last, has it, De Morcerf?" he said, half audibly. "Well, was it worth the price, do you think? Peace to you, or, at least, such peace as you deserve. You've paid your scot and passed out eternally. As for the rest—— Mr. Narkom!"
"Yes, old chap?"
"I noticed last night, when I was down on my knees following the trail of the Huile Violette, that there was a section of the flooring which has evidently been raised lately, as it was fastened down with new nails. Locate the place for me—it's over their somewhere—and stand there while I do a little measuring and counting."
Narkom moved over in the direction indicated, searched about for a time with a magnifying glass, and finally announced the discovery of the place he had been set to look for.