there,
still communing with his own thoughts, though it was now nearing ten
o'clock, and he had told Dollops to be at the wall angle to meet him at
nine. But suddenly his attitude changed; his hands dropped, his head
jerked upward, as a sleeping cat's does when it hears a gnawing mouse,
and he was on his feet, alert, eager, all alive, in a twinkling. Half a
minute later Miss Lorne stepped from the grass on to the gravel and
found him waiting for her in the arch of the summerhouse doorway.

"It is you at last, then, is it?" he said, reaching out to her through
the darkness. "Take my hand and I will guide you if you cannot see the
way clearly. I can't risk striking a match."

"It isn't necessary; I know the way quite well," she answered; but she
took his hand all the same. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting; I came
as quickly as I could. Mrs. Raynor had fallen asleep over her novel
while we were waiting for you and her son to finish your cigars and join
us in the drawing-room, but Hamer coming in with your note awoke her and
I could not get away so quickly as I desired."

"Was Mrs. Raynor interested in the note, then? Did she show any desire
to hear what it was about?" he questioned eagerly.

"Oh, no. She"--colouring under cover of the darkness--"she merely
laughed, and said that it was no more than she should have expected, but
she kept me talking so long that I nearly lost all patience, and your
note did puzzle me, Mr. Cleek. Why was it so important that you should
see me at once without Kathie knowing? Have you discovered anything
fresh?"

"Such strange things indeed have happened, Miss Lorne, since this
evening," he returned quietly, "that I think I shall need your help in
getting to the bottom of them. For one thing, it is now absolutely
certain that the murderer of the Common keeper came into these grounds
last night after he had committed the crime, and that when he gave
Narkom and his men the slip the fellow came directly to this place
unseen."

"Mr. Cleek!"

"Sh-h-h! Not so loud, please. And don't shake like that. Steady
yourself, for there is something yet more startling to come. There is
now positive proof, Miss Lorne, that Lady Katharine Fordham did leave
this house last night and go to Gleer Cottage."

"I won't believe it!" she flung out loyally. But she had scarcely more
than said it when his next words cut the ground from beneath her.

"A witness has turned up," he said; "a witness who saw her th