"What are you doing gadding around at this time of night?"
"Me, sir?" replied Roberts, bitterly. "I've bin fetched out to see murdered women and – "
"Not – not Miss Cheyne!" gasped the young man.
A queer little smile looped up one corner of Cleek's mouth.
"Hello, hello!" he said, mentally, "someone else knows of it, eh?" Here was somebody who, to his way of thinking, jumped to right conclusions too quickly. Why should Sir Edgar Brenton, as he knew this man to be, know that it should be Miss Cheyne, unless – and here Cleek's mind raced on wings of doubt again – unless he himself had killed Miss Cheyne? And if so, who was this woman – ?
As if from some distance he could hear Roberts's grumbling bellow:
"Miss Cheyne? Lor', don't you go for to say you've got that bee in your bonnet, too, Sir Edgar. It is quite enough with this gent, Lieutenant Deland, a-coming and fetching me away from my bit of supper. What my missis will say remains to be 'eard, as they says. 'Deed, no, Miss Cheyne's as live as you, and in a thunderin' bad temper – "
"Thank the Lord!" ejaculated the young squire in a low, fervent undertone.
"An' what made you think, if I might be so bold, Sir Edgar, that it was Miss Cheyne?" asked the constable curiously, voicing Cleek's unspoken thought.
That gentleman cleared his throat before answering.
"It was just a chance hit, Roberts," said he, but his voice held an odd little crabbed note in it. "You see, you were coming straight from Cheyne Court, so it couldn't have been any one else."
"No, sir, come to think, it couldn't be," assented Roberts, and Cleek, who had stepped back into the shadow of the hedge, twitched up his eyebrows as he sensed the relief that stole over Sir Edgar's face.
"A nice fright you gave me, too," continued the young man, speaking more easily. "I'm supposed to be at a political dinner-fight in London, you know, Roberts. Only just got back, in fact, and I didn't feel up to it, so when I heard that precious motor of yours I was afraid it might be some dashed good-natured friend, don't you know, and so I cut across the hedge."
"Quite right, too," assented Constable Roberts approvingly, in whose eyes Sir Edgar could do no wrong. Then to Cleek, "Well, sir, I think we'll be moving, if you don't mind."
"Indeed I don't," Cleek replied, and then he addressed Sir Edgar. "Sorry I startled you, sir – took you for a poacher, don't you know. Perhaps you'll let me drive you through the village if you are going this way." He smiled with a well-feigned air of stupidity, put up his eyeglass into his eye, and lurched up against the young man as he spoke.
"Pleased," mumbled Sir Edgar, and got into the limousine.
Another two or three minutes' run brought them into the village, and here Sir Edgar insisted on alighting, and continuing his journey on foot.
Cleek watched him go with brows on which deep furrows were marked.
"Wonder what made the young gentleman lie so futilely?" he said at length as his shadow gradually merged in with the darkness ahead.
"Lie?" echoed the astonished constable, as he fumbled with the latch of his garden gate.
"Yes, lie, my friend," flung back Cleek, his foot on the step of the car. "He was running to the station not from it; his clothes smelt strongly of the scent which pervaded the house this afternoon, namely jasmine; and thirdly, there was a revolver in his pocket. A revolver is a thing no gentleman takes to a dinner with him, even a political one."
And, leaving Mr. Roberts to digest this piece of mental food with his long-delayed supper, the car whizzed away in the moonlight. Cleek's first duty was to Ailsa, and he found her waiting for him pale and expectant at the little gate.
"Oh," she cried, as the motor panted its way into silence. "I thought you were never coming back. Where is she, dear? Where is that helpless child?"
She hurried out, but Cleek flung up an arresting hand.
"I am either going mad, Ailsa, or else there is a greater mystery here than I can fathom," he said quickly. "Miss Cheyne herself was there to receive us and – "
"Miss Cheyne!" echoed Ailsa, her eyes dilating, and apparently she was almost as shocked at this news of her evident existence as she had been a short while back by her demise. "But you said – " her voice trailed away into silence, and Cleek took the words out of her mouth.
"She was dead! Yes, I certainly thought so, and I cannot understand it. Nevertheless, Miss Cheyne is there all right, Constable Roberts will vouch for that; and Lady Margaret is presumably tucked up safe and sound in her bed, but it is incomprehensible to me. Here's the story if you care to hear it."
He gave a rough outline of his various discoveries and at the end of it Ailsa nodded her head gravely.
"I cannot understand it, either," she said. "I suppose nothing can be done, but I will go up to Cheyne Court early in the morning and see the child for myself."
Cleek smiled his approval.
"I wish you would," he said. "I must run up and see Mr. Narkom, and to-morrow perhaps – well, who knows – "
CHAPTER V
THE THREADS OF CHANCE
It had just gone nine o'clock on that same eventful evening when the limousine slowed down before Scotland Yard, and the car was handed over to its natural owners. Superintendent Narkom, Cleek learned to his extreme relief, was engaged on a special case involving his working at the Yard to a late hour. In the fraction of a second Cleek was ascending the stone staircase and traversing the corridor, at the end of which lay the private room of his friend and ally. He still felt that all was not as it should be at Cheyne Court, and even though he was unable to do anything at the moment, yet he felt he must pour the story of his adventure into the trained and sympathetic ears of the man with whom he had worked so long and so faithfully. It could not have been more than a minute, but the time seemed endless till he at length, after a preliminary tap, threw open the door of the room and saw the figure of Mr. Narkom ensconced in his arm-chair, his brows knitted, and his hands clenched over a sheet of paper lying on the desk before him. He looked up irritably at the evidently unwelcome intrusion.
"Now, what the – " he began. Then as he caught sight of the intruder, he leaped from his seat and fairly hurled himself on Cleek.
"Cleek!" he shouted. "Cleek, the very man I was praying for! Come along in and lock the door behind you so we can't be disturbed."
Cleek obeyed, smiling a little. He was always willing and eager to give his help to the Yard, and the very fact that Mr. Maverick Narkom so plainly depended on him lent still further zest to his willingness.
"Hello," he said lightly, "you look fairly dazed, Mr. Narkom. What's in the wind? It's a case, of course. And a jewel case at that," he added.
"Cinnamon! Cleek," stuttered the Superintendent, falling limply into his lately vacated chair. "How the dickens did you know, or are you – "
"In league with the Evil One himself, eh?" finished Cleek, the queer, one-sided smile travelling over his face. "No, it's quite simple, my dear fellow. At your side you have a book, 'Famous Stones and Their History.' In front of you is a lapidary's glass. Clearly you have been examining stones of some kind, real or artificial, see?"
"Yes, I do see," muttered Mr. Narkom. "And you're right Cleek, devilish right. It is a jewel theft. As a matter of fact, it's a series of thefts, all by the same gang, and Heaven alone knows how or from where they operate."
"Oho!" said Cleek, with a strong rising inflection. "A gang, eh? Now I wonder if I know. There's the French gang, headed by our old friend Margot; the Viennese gang, by Mr. Von Henri, and the Lambeth Walk gang that have called themselves the Pentacle Club – "
"That's the set. But how you knew beats me! Petrie and Hammond will have it they are at the bottom of these cases. There have been one after the other, jewels stolen from travellers at railway stations, jewels