ehicle, he fumbled nervously for his
latchkey, found it, unlocked the door, and went hurriedly in.

"Have you come yet, Mr. Cleek?" he called out, as he shut the door and
stood in the pitch-black hall. "Mr. Cleek! Mr. Cleek, are you here? It
is I--Maurice Van Nant. Mr. Narkom has sent me on ahead."

Not a sound answered him, not even an echo. He sucked in his breath with
a sort of wheezing sound, then groped round the hall table till he found
his bedroom candle, and, striking a match, lit it. The staircase leading
to the upper floors gaped at him out of the partial gloom, and he fairly
sprang at it--indeed, was halfway up it when some other idea possessed
him, brought him to a sudden standstill, and, facing round abruptly, he
went back to the lower hall again, glimmering along it like a shadow,
with the inadequate light held above him, and moving fleetly to the
studio in the rear.

The door stood partly open, just as he had left it. He pushed it inward
and stepped over the threshold.

"Mr. Cleek!" he called again. "Mr. Cleek! Are you here?"

And again the silence alone answered him. The studio was as he had seen
it last, save for those fantastic shadows which the candle's wavering
flame wreathed in the dim corners and along the pictured walls. There,
on its half-draped pedestal, the Roman senator stood--dead white against
the purple background--and there, close to the foot of it, the great
bulk of the disproportionate nymph still sprawled, finished and
whitewashed now, and looking even more of a monstrosity than ever in
that waving light.

He gave one deep gulping sigh of relief, flashed across the room on
tiptoe, and went down on his knees beside the monstrous thing, moving
the candle this way and that along the length of it, as if searching for
something, and laughing in little jerky gasps of relief when he found
nothing that was not as it had been--as it should be--as he wanted it to
be. And then, as he rose and patted the clay, and laughed aloud as he
realised how hard it had set, then, at that instant, a white shape
lurched forward and swooped downward, carrying him down with it. The
candle slipped from his fingers and clattered on the floor, a pair of
steel handcuffs clicked as they closed round his wrists, a voice above
him said sharply: "You wanted Cleek I believe? Well, Cleek's got you,
you sneaking murderer. Gentlemen, come in! Allow me to turn over to you
the murderer of George Carboys! You'll find the