rty-five minutes," he whispered. "I said the assassin was
a fool; I said the blunders made it possible for the case to be
concluded to-night, did I not? Wait for me. In three-quarters of an hour
the murderer will be here on this spot with me!" Then he screwed round
on his heel, and before Narkom could speak was gone, soundlessly and
completely gone, just as he used to go in his Vanishing Cracksman's
days, leaving just that promise behind him.

III

It wanted but thirteen minutes of being midnight when the gathering
about the siding where the shunted carriage containing the body of the
murdered man still stood received something in the nature of a shock
when, on glancing round as a sharp whistle shrilled a warning note, they
saw an engine, attached to one solitary carriage, backing along the
metals and bearing down upon them.

"I say, Mr. Knockem, or Narkhim, or whatever your name is," blurted out
Colonel Murchison, as he hastily caught the Hon. Mrs. Brinkworth by the
arm and whisked her back from the metals, leaving his daughter to be
looked after by Captain Crawford, "look out for your blessed bobbies.
Somebody's shunting another coach in on top of us; and if the ass
doesn't look what he's doing----There! I told you!" as the coach in
question settled with a slight jar against that containing the body of
Lord Stavornell. "Of all the blundering, pig-headed fools! Might have
killed some of us. What next, I wonder?"

What next, as a matter of fact, gave him cause for even greater wonder;
for as the two carriages met, the door of the last compartment in the
one which had just arrived opened briskly, and out of it stepped first a
couple of uniformed policemen, next a ginger-haired youth with a kit-bag
in one hand and a saveloy in the other, then the trim figure of the
lady who had so long and popularly been known in the music-hall world as
Mademoiselle Fifi de Lesparre, and last of all----"Cleek!" blurted out
Narkom, overcome with amazement, as he saw the serenely alighting
figure. And "Cleek!" went in a little rippling murmur throughout the
entire gathering, civilians and local police alike.

"All right, Mr. Narkom," said Cleek himself, with a slight shrug of the
shoulders. "Even the best of us slip up sometimes; and since everybody
knows now, we'll have to make the best of it. Gentlemen, ladies, you,
too, my colleagues, my best respects. Now to business." Then he stepped
out of the shadow in which he had alighted in