d drive you over to Clavering Close. Ask for Miss Lorne when
you get there, and give her this message. Say that she and Lady
Katharine are to stop where they are until I come for them in person.
Understand?"

"Yes, sir. And when I've done that, wot next, if you please?"

"Go home and go to bed; that's all. Good-night. Cut along!"

The boy and the limousine were gone like a flash.

"Come along, Mr. Narkom. Let us go and pay our respects to the General,"
said Cleek; then he pushed open the gates and passed into the grounds,
with the agitated superintendent trotting along by his side.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

HOW THE TRUTH WAS TOLD

In the closed and curtained library General Raynor paced up and down,
silent, anxious, alone, his nerves raw, his face haggard, his eyes
brightening with expectancy every time a breeze shook or bellied the
draperies hanging over the open window, but dimming again when they
sagged back into position without anything coming of their disturbance.

"Waiting, you see," said Cleek in a whisper as he and Narkom emerged
from the screen of the trees, and saw the chink of light made by the
wind-blown curtains, and the shadow which moved back and forth and
momentarily blotted it. "Poor old chap! He must be suffering torments.
Come on! Step lightly! Make no noise until we are at the window's ledge.
This is the end of his waiting at last!"

Evidently the General was of that opinion, also, when, a few moments
later, he heard a footstep on the gravel, and, halting to listen and to
make sure, heard that footstep come on and up the terrace steps. With a
quick intaking of the breath and a whispered, "Is it you? Is it you at
last?" he moved fleetly to the window, twitched aside the curtains, and
let the guarded light streak outward into the night.

It fell full upon two men--Cleek and Narkom--standing within an arm's
reach of the indrawn sashes and the divided drapery.

A flash of sudden pallor, followed quickly by an angry flush, passed
over the General's face as he saw and recognized Cleek.

"Really, Mr. Barch, this is carrying your little pleasantries too far,"
he rapped out in a voice that had a little tremble in it. "Will you
allow me to say that we are not accustomed to guests who get up and
prowl about the place at all hours of the night, and turn up suddenly at
half-past one in the morning with uninvited acquaintances."

"Quite so," said Cleek, "but the law is no respecter of any man's