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СКАЧАТЬ the lady had had a love affair years before Sir Philip Clavering had met and married her? Suppose when De Louvisan turned up she had recognized in him, and he had recognized in her—— Quite so! Quite so! De Louvisan, an adventurer pure and simple, would be likely to make capital out of a hold obtained over the wife of an English millionaire. It would be imperative for her to see him at once and buy his silence if she could. Of course! Of course! Gleer Cottage was within easy reaching distance; Gleer Cottage was known to be absolutely deserted; and if one wanted to have a secret interview—— And to carry the hypothesis further, suppose Sir Philip Clavering, anxious over his wife's condition, should run up to her room to inquire about her, and, finding her gone, should trace her movements, go out after her, follow until he came to Gleer Cottage; and as soon as she and De Louvisan had parted—— Well, there you are! Then, too, Sir Philip Clavering was addicted to the use of black cosmetic! And the marks on the dead man's shirt front were—— Heigho! You never know! You never know! But for the boy's sake and for the sake of Narkom's fondness for both——

      His thoughts dropped off. He had come again to the cell where the murdered keeper's clothes lay, just where he had flung them down when the coming of Geoff and Lady Katharine had attracted his attention and turned his interest in another direction. Now he had time to turn to them again.

      If, by any chance, it really had been Sir Philip Clavering, how came these clothes buried in the grounds of Wuthering Grange? Of course the General's "ruin" was famous all over the district; and, naturally, if a man of Sir Philip Clavering's keen wits were the assassin, he would take means to get the things hidden away as expeditiously as possible, and as far away from his own place as circumstances would permit. He wouldn't know, of course, that circumstances would arise that would point to an occupant of Wuthering Grange—Lady Katharine—being implicated and any search of the place result, and he would be quite free from wishing to lead the trail in that direction. Of course, when he learned that he had done so—as learn everybody must in a day or two—he would do his best to get rid of the things, and when that happened—— Ah, well! poor devil, it would be the end of one rope and the beginning of another.

      It was an old, old trick of the assassin's, this burying things and then harking back to the spot either to remove them or to see if they were safe; and this assassin, whosoever he might prove to be, would be sure to follow the universal precedent. When he did——! Cleek bundled the clothing back into the hole, took up the spade, shovelled back the earth, and made the spot look as nearly as possible as it had been when he stumbled upon it.

      "A little bit of spy work for Dollops," was his unspoken thought. "He can spend a few days down here very profitably, and be ready to give the signal when the man comes."

      He put the spade back in the place where he had found it, and, facing about, went up the stone steps, and after replacing the movable slab, made his way out of the ruin; for it was now time to be about the task of dressing for dinner and what promised to be an eventful evening.

      Should he take Miss Lorne into his confidence or not? Yes, he fancied that he would. For one thing, she knew Lady Clavering and he did not, and as it would be necessary for him to get out after dark and prowl about the Common to learn if her ladyship did or did not join in the search for the missing Geoff——Hullo! What the dickens was that?

      A very simple thing, indeed, when he came to investigate it. By this time he had come abreast of the house itself, and was moving along under the shadow of the deepening twilight when the circumstances which sent his thoughts off from the plans he was mapping out occurred. It was nothing more nor less than the fluttering down through the still air of a soft flaky substance, which struck him in the face and then dropped softly upon his sleeve—a small charred scrap of burnt paper. He looked up, and saw that it had fallen from other charred scraps that clung to the prickly branches of a huge monkey-puzzle tree close to the angle where a recently added wing joined the main structure of the house.

      A window was above that tree, and a chimney was above that window. Hum-m-m! Second window from the angle—Lord St. Ulmer's room. What was Lord St. Ulmer burning papers for? What sort of papers had he that it was necessary for him—a supposed invalid—to get out of bed and destroy? And why in the world should he choose this particular day to do it? And a lot of paper, too, by George! judging from the quantity of charred scraps clinging to that monkey-puzzle. What an ass the man was to burn things when there was no wind to carry off the ashes and when—— He looked down and saw one or two half-burned discs of paper, which had escaped entire destruction, lying upon the gravel of the path.

      He stooped and picked one up. It was a circular white label, printed on one side and gummed on the other, just the sort of label which chemists and proprietors of patent ointments use to affix to the lids of the round tin boxes containing their wares. The thing was partly burnt away until, from being originally a complete circle, it was now merely a "half moon" of white paper with charred fragments clinging to the fire-bitten gap in it.

      He turned the thing over and looked at its printed side. Part of that printing had been destroyed, but there was still enough of it to show for what the label had been prepared.

      Evidently Lord St. Ulmer had been engaged in burning labels, unused labels, that had been prepared for boxes containing a patent blacking for boots, shoes, and leather goods generally.

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       A BOLD STROKE

       Table of Contents

      Cleek stood a moment holding the burnt label between his thumb and forefinger and regarding it silently, his face a blank as far as any expression of his feelings was concerned. Then, of a sudden, his gaze transferred itself to one of the two other labels which, like this one, had escaped entire destruction by the fire; and carefully picking them up, he laid them inside his pocket notebook, gave a casual, offhand sort of glance at the windows of Lord St. Ulmer's room, and then quietly resumed his sauntering walk in the direction of the house.

      The twilight was now so rapidly fading that it might be said to be all but dark when he reached the main entrance to the building and found one of the footmen busily engaged in lighting up the huge electric chandelier which served to illuminate the broad hallway of the Grange. But neither the General nor any of the ladies was visible, all, as he correctly surmised, being engaged in the matter of dressing for dinner.

      "Pardon me, sir," said the footman, turning at the sound of his step as he came in, "I was just about to step out into the grounds to ascertain if you might not, by chance, have lost yourself or failed to hear the dressing gong, sir. It is quite half an hour since Miss Lorne requested me to be on the lookout for you, and I was getting anxious."

      "Extremely kind of you, I must say," said Cleek serenely. "But never give yourself any uneasiness upon my account so long as I remain here. I am given to taking my time on all occasions, my man. I think out all the plots of my novels prowling about in silence and alone, and an interruption is apt to destroy a train of thought forever." And having thus given the man an idea that he was an author—and accounted beforehand for any possible need for prowling about the place when the others were asleep—he went further, and gave him half a crown to salve his injured feelings, and won in return for it something which he would have held cheaply bought at a sovereign.

      "Now tell me," he went on, "why did Miss Lorne ask you to be 'on the lookout' for me? Has anything extraordinary occurred?"

      "Oh, no indeed, СКАЧАТЬ