y friend Barch's clothes and would have nicked
yours, too, if he hadn't come a cropper. Got down the staircase there,
and dodged into one of the empty rooms, I'll lay my life, pater, and as
soon as you came up and left the coast clear, slipped out of the house
and got away."

In the game of life chance is an important factor; and chance, as much
as anything else, favoured Cleek in this particular instance, for it was
his especial aim to lull Lord St. Ulmer's suspicions of the mysterious
"man" and to quiet any fear he might possess of that man's possible
connection with the police. It need scarcely be recorded, therefore,
that he hastened to second Harry Raynor's suggestion relative to the
intruder being nothing more nor less than a sneak thief, who had taken
precisely the mode mentioned of making his escape, and backed it up with
a panicky sort of appeal to the General to "have the house searched and
all the empty rooms below stairs looked into on the off-chance that the
fellow hadn't really got away as yet."

The suggestion was acted upon forthwith. Every vacant room was searched,
and it was in this matter that chance favoured Cleek so signally, for it
was found that a window in one of the lower rooms had been left wide
open, and as that window communicated with a veranda, from which a short
flight of steps led down to the garden at a point where the walk was
asphalted and could not be expected to retain a footprint, there would
seem to be no question of where and how the man had made his escape.

Dinner, owing to this interruption, together with the unexpected return
of Mr. Harry and the awkward position in which Philip Barch had been
placed, was put back for half an hour; and Cleek, left to himself,
proceeded to dress himself in the clothes with which young Raynor had
supplied him. But for all his cleverness in turning suspicion into
another channel, he was not best pleased with the result of the
adventure, for he was faced with the fact that he had failed to
accomplish what he had set out to do, and that his efforts concerning
Lord St. Ulmer had been absolutely barren of results. He had _not_
succeeded in seeing his lordship's face, he had _not_ succeeded in
discovering how this man, of all men, should have come into possession
of the Jetanola labels, or, indeed, _anything_ that had belonged to
Ferdinand Lovetski. Ferdinand Lovetski had been done to death in Paris
only seven years ago, and his lordship had been--o