ubt Mr. Narkom and I can get a conveyance of some sort here.
At any rate--h'm! it is now a quarter to three, I see--at any
rate, you may certainly expect us at quarter-past five. You and
her ladyship may go back quite openly, Major. There will be no
need to attempt to throw dust in Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake's eyes
any longer by keeping the disappearance of the animal a secret.
If he's had a hand in her spiriting away, he knows, of course, that
she's gone; but if he hasn't--oh, well, I fancy I know who did, and
that she will be in the running on Derby Day after all. A few
minutes in Highland Lassie's stable will settle that, I feel sure.
Your ladyship, my compliments. Major, good afternoon. I hope if
night overtakes us before we get at the bottom of the thing you can
manage to put us up at the Abbey until to-morrow that we may be
on the spot to the last?"

"With pleasure, Mr. Cleek," said Lady Mary; and bowed him out of the
room.

CHAPTER XIII

It was precisely ten minutes past five o'clock and the long-lingering
May twilight was but just beginning to gather when the spring cart
of the Rose and Thistle arrived at the Abbey stables, and Cleek
and Mr. Narkom descending therefrom found themselves the centre
of an interested group composed of the major and Lady Mary, the
countryside doctor, and Captain MacTavish.

The captain, who had nothing Scottish about him but his name, was a
smiling, debonnaire gentleman with flaxen hair and a curling, fair
moustache; and Cleek, catching sight of him as he stood leaning,
in a carefully studied pose, against the stable door-post with one
foot crossed over the other, one hand in his trousers pocket and
the other swinging a hunting crop whose crook was a greyhound's
head wrought in solid silver, concluded that here was, perhaps,
the handsomest man of his day, and that, in certain sections of
society, he might be guaranteed to break hearts by the hundred. It
must be said of him, however, that he carried his manifold charms of
person with smooth serenity and perfect poise; that, if he realized
his own beauty, he gave no outward evidences of it. He was calm,
serene, well-bred, and had nothing of the "Doll" or the "Johnny"
element in either his bearing or his deportment. He was at once
splendidly composed and almost insolently bland.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Cleek. Read a great deal about you one
way and another," he said, when the major made the introduction--a
performance w