er after I have seen the parties
concerned," said Cleek after a moment's pause. "You have brought your
motor, of course? Let us step into it, then, and whizz round to Captain
Morrison's house. What's that? Oh, undoubtedly a case of foul play, Mr.
Narkom. But as to the motive and the matter of who is guilty, it is
impossible to decide until I have looked further into the evidence. Do
me a favour, will you? After you have left me at the captain's house,
'phone up the Yard, and let me have the secret cable code with the East;
also, if you can, the name of the chief of the Persian police."

"My dear chap, you can't really place any credence in that absurd
assertion regarding the blue belt? You can't possibly think that Abdul
ben Meerza really did send the thing?"

"No, I can't," said Cleek in reply. "Because, to the best of my belief,
it is impossible for a dead man to send anything; and, if my memory
doesn't betray me, I fancy I read in the newspaper accounts of that big
Tajik rising at Khotour a couple of months ago, that the leader one
Abdul ben Meerza, a rich but exceedingly miserly merchant of the
province of Elburz, was, by the Shah's command, bastinadoed within an
inch of his life, and then publicly beheaded."

"By Jove! I believe you are right, my dear fellow," asserted Narkom. "I
thought the name had a familiar sound as if I had, somewhere, heard it
before. I suppose there is no likelihood, by any chance, that the old
skinflint could have lived up to his promise and left poor Carboys
something, after all, Cleek? Because, you know, if he did----"

"Captain Morrison would, as heir-at-law, inherit it," supplemented Cleek
dryly. "Get out the motor, Mr. Narkom, and let's spin round and see him.
I fancy I should like a few minutes' conversation with the captain.
And--Mr. Narkom?"

"Yes?"

"We'll stick to the name 'George Headland' if you please. When you are
out for birds it doesn't do to frighten them off beforehand."

II

It did not take more than five minutes to cover the distance between
Sunnington Crescent and the modest little house where Captain Morrison
and his daughter lived; so in a very brief time Cleek had the
satisfaction of interviewing both.

Narkom's assertion that Miss Morrison was "half out of her mind over the
distressing affair" had prepared him to encounter a weeping, red-eyed,
heart-broken creature of the most excitable type. He found instead a
pale, serious-faced, undemonstrative girl