ted the huge figure of him.

Cleek bowed. He looked keenly into the gray eyes under the beetling
brows, came to the rapid conclusion that here was a man who could keep
his tongue in leash if required, and then with a glance over the four
police-constables standing behind him, handed him a card upon which he
had scribbled one word, and then watched the effect of it with dawning
amusement as the knowledge soaked into the Inspector's consciousness.

"Name's Deland," he said with a knowing wink, speaking in the nick of
time, before the Sergeant in his astonishment and admiration for this
man who stood before him, and whose name was a household word upon the
tongue of every policeman the world over, had quite given the show away
to the rest of his followers. "Arthur Deland. You've probably heard of
me, Sergeant, if you follow the doings of Scotland Yard at all. Came up
here under Mr. Narkom's orders to handle another case, and then
dropped--_plop!_--upon this one. Better come along now. I want you to
set a couple of men before the library door, where the thing took
place--nothing to be moved, of course, or touched in any way, until Mr.
Narkom arrives--and then send another of your men back to fetch ten more
reserves, and stand guard all round the house from the outside. Tell 'em
to report to you every half hour, and if there's anything doing bring it
along to me at once. You understand?"

"Yessir. Certainly, sir."

"Then come along."

He led the way through the long hall, past the gaping butler to whom
this stranger, whom his master had entertained at lunch, and who was now
so mysteriously in charge of affairs, seemed suddenly to have assumed a
principal part in the affair, and to be showing his "nerve" in a good
many ways; and with a quick order to him to see that all doors and
windows were securely bolted and locked, so that no one could get in or
out of the house save at the instigation of the Law and the Law's
minions, Cleek passed on to that chamber of death where the old laird
lay, and turning the handle softly, led the way in.

There was a light shining in the centre of the room from an
old-fashioned lamp which stood upon the desk-top and sent a soft
effulgence round and about it that lay like a halo upon the peace of
that silent place. At the desk sat Ross Duggan, head in hands, shutting
out the sight of the Thing that faced him in all the majesty of death,
that Thing which so short a time back had been his own