"Good heavens above, old chap, how you notice things! Fancy your remarking that when you were looking for something totally different! I say what on earth are you doing?"
"Measuring," replied Cleek, stepping off the distance between the spot where the body hung and that where Narkom knelt. "Three feet, one yard; three yards—— No, that won't do. 'Nine feet from the body' doesn't work out, so it's not that. Nine paces are impossible—room's too short—and nine boards—— Hum-m-m! That's poorer than the rest—doesn't go half the way. Clearly then, if my theory is correct, it's not the body that's the starting point. How about the mantelpiece then? Let's have a try. Nine feet? No go! Nine boards, then? Oh, piffle! that's worse than ever. It leads off in a totally different direction. But stop a bit! These boards run up and down the room, not across it; and as it is undoubted that the measurement goes to the left, why, two and four make six. Hum-m-m! Six feet from the corner of the mantelpiece to——Hullo! that brings me exactly opposite to where you stand, doesn't it? And counting the board between us runs to—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Exactly nine boards across the room! Got it, by Jupiter! Three paces from the body bring one to the mantelpiece. And paces are usually designated in a diagram by X's. And nine boards across the room does the trick! Letters, she said, letters! That was the first clue. Letters that might fall into Margot's hands; and as that dead wretch was Margot's ally once upon a time, and might threaten to give the things over to her if his demands were not acceded to—— Victoria! He will have hidden them there, unless I'm the biggest kind of an ass, and can no longer put two and two together!"
Speaking, he moved rapidly across the room to the spot where Narkom stood, knelt, and in five minutes' time had the board up. Under it there lay something tied up in an old white silk handkerchief; and when the knots of that were unfastened three thick packets of yellow, time-discoloured letters, tied up with old neckties and frayed silken shoelaces, tumbled out upon the floor. One and all were addressed to "M. Anatole de Villon," and were written in a woman's hand.
Cleek snapped the binding of the first bundle, looked at the signature appended to the letters, and then passed them over to Narkom.
"There is the answer to the riddle," he said. "Poor soul—poor, poor unhappy soul! Under God, she shall suffer no more from this night on! And he would have sold her—sold her for money had he lived."
Narkom made no reply in words. He simply glanced at the signature attached to the first letter, then sucked in his breath with a sort of shuddering sigh, and grew very, very still.
"Let's get out!" said Cleek in a sharp, biting voice. "I can't breathe in the presence of that dead beast any longer. 'Who breaks pays!' Yes, by God, he does!"
He turned and got out of the room, out of the house, and forged back through the darkness toward the spot where the limousine waited.
Halfway up the lane Narkom overtook him.
"Cleek, dear chap," he said, plucking him by the sleeve, "in the name of heaven, what is to be done now? The man is my friend. He believes in her; he loves her; and on my soul I believe that she loves him. Dear old chap, isn't there something better and nobler than human justice, something higher than the laws of man?"