had been brought from outside
the house or something that could be picked up within it?"

"As a matter of fact, my dear fellow, it was part of the bellrope that
belonged to that very room. It had been cut off and converted into a
noose."

"Oho!" said Cleek. "I see--I see!" Then, after a moment: "Pull down the
blinds of the limousine, will you, Mr. Narkom?" he added as he bent and
picked up the kit-bag. "I want to do a little bit in the way of a
change; and, if you are proceeding directly to the scene of the
murder----"

"I am, dear chap. Any idea, Cleek?"

"Bushels. Tell you if they're worth anything after I've seen the body.
If they are---- Well, I shall either have the Siva stones in my hand
before eight o'clock to-night, or----"

"Yes, old chap? Or what?"

"Or the Hindu's got 'em and they're already out of the country for good
and all. And--Mr. Narkom, 'George Headland' will do, if you please."

II

Lennard having slackened the speed of the motor considerably, and in
addition taken two or three wide curves out of the direct line, it was
quite half-past four when the limousine stopped in front of the Glossop
residence, about which a curious collection of morbid-minded people had
gathered. There alighted therefrom, first the superintendent, and then
the over-dressed figure with the lank, fair hair and the fresh-coloured,
insipid countenance of as perfect a specimen of the genus sap-head as
you could pick up anywhere between John o' Groat's and Land's End. A
flower was in his buttonhole, a monocle in his eye, and the gold head of
his jointed walking-stick was sucked into the red eyelet of his
puckered-up lips.

"Oh, yez! Oh, yez!" sang out derisively a bedraggled female on the edge
of the crowd as this utterly unrecognizable edition of Cleek stepped out
upon the pavement. "Oh, yez! Oh, yez! 'Ere's to give notice! Them's the
bright sparks wot rides in motor-cars, them is, and my poor 'usband a
hoofin' of it all the dies of 'is blessed life!"

"Move on, now--move on!" cautioned the constable on guard, waving her
aside and making a clear passage for the superintendent and his
companion across the pavement and up the steps. And a moment later Cleek
was in the house, in the morning-room, in the presence of Captain
Harvey Glossop, his wife, and the young Duke of Heatherlands.

The lady was a pale, fragile-looking woman of about three-and-twenty,
very beautiful, very well bred, low-voiced, and altogether charm