timus Nosworth's promised fortune after all! 'God's in his
heaven, and all's right with the world.'"

CHAPTER X

"Yes, a very, very clever scheme indeed, Miss Renfrew," agreed
Cleek. "Laid with great cunning and carried out with extreme
carefulness--as witness the man's coming here and getting appointed
constable and biding his time, and the woman serving as cook for six
months to get the entree to the house and to be ready to assist when
the time of action came round. I don't think I had the least inkling
of the truth until I entered this house and saw that woman. She had
done her best to pad herself to an unwieldy size and to blanch
portions of her hair, but she couldn't quite make her face appear
old without betraying the fact that it was painted--and hers is one
of those peculiarly pretty faces that one never forgets when one
has ever seen it. I knew her the instant I entered the house;
and, remembering the Chanticler dress with its fowl's-foot boots, I
guessed at once what those marks would prove to be when I came to
investigate them. She must have stamped on the ground with all
her might, to sink the marks in so deeply--but she meant to make
sure of the claws and the exaggerated scales on the toes leaving
their imprint. I was certain we should find that dress and those
boots among her effects; and--Mr. Narkom did. What I wrote on that
pretended telegram was for him to slip away into the house proper
and search every trunk and cupboard for them. Pardon? No, I don't
think they really had any idea of incriminating Sir Ralph Droger.
That thought came into the fellow's mind when you stepped out and
caught him stealing away after the murder had been committed. No
doubt he, like you, had seen Sir Ralph practising for the sports,
and he simply made capital of it. The main idea was to kill his
father and to destroy the will; and of course, when it became
apparent that the old gentleman had died intestate, even a discarded
son must inherit. Where he made his blunder, however, was in his
haste to practise his ventriloquial accomplishment to prevent your
going into the Round House and discovering that his father was
already dead. He ought to have waited until you had spoken, so
that it would appear natural for the old man to know, without
turning, who it was that had opened the door. That is what put me
on the track of him. Until that moment I hadn't the slightest
suspicion where he was nor under what guise he was