thering Grange when----"

He stopped, biting his words off short and laying a nervous grip on
Cleek's arm; and Cleek, facing about abruptly, leaned forward into the
mist and darkness, listening.

For of a sudden, a babble of angry voices, mingled with the sounds of a
scuffle, had risen from the road beyond the gates, and hard on the
heels of it there now rang forth sharply the shrill tones of Dollops
crying out at the top of his voice:

"None o' yer larks, now! Got yer! Gov'ner! Mr. Narkom! This way! Come
quick, will yer? I've copped the bounder. Out here in the bushes under
this blessed wall!"

CHAPTER SIX

A LITTLE DISCREPANCY

The distance between the gates of Gleer Cottage and the porch wherein
lay the body of the dead keeper was by no means a short one, but at the
first sound of Dollops's voice the two men sped down the centre of the
dark, mist-wrapped drive and out into the lane, their electric pocket
torches sending two brilliant streams of light in front of them. The
sounds of scuffling feet and of wrangling voices guided them along the
broken, irregular line of the crumbling brick wall which encircled the
grounds of the cottage, and following the lead of them, they came
presently upon an amazing picture.

Close to that identical spot where, earlier in the night, Hammond had
found the gap in the wall, two figures struggled together: the one, in a
vain endeavour to free himself from the clutches of his captor; the
other intent on bringing him to the ground, on which lay scattered all
the drawings and paraphernalia with which Dollops had evidently been
carrying out his master's instructions. The light of the torches
revealed his prisoner to be a sturdy, fair-haired young man, and a first
glance showed Cleek that he was arrayed in a fashionable light-weight
overcoat which, torn open in the struggle, showed him also to be in
immaculate evening dress. It hardly needed Mr. Narkom's startled
exclamation, "Geoff!" to tell the detective that this was indeed the son
and heir of Sir Philip Clavering, the young man whose bitter threats
against the dead man in the cottage had been so swiftly carried out.

But the exclamation had a far-reaching effect upon Dollops's prisoner,
for he ceased struggling at once and faced round upon the superintendent
so that the full glare of the torches could fall upon his features and
leave not a shadow of doubt regarding his identity.

"Hullo! Mr. Narkom!" he exclaimed. "Th