rd, and so appallingly
mysterious. Conceive if you can, my dear fellow, an individual so
supernaturally cunning that he not only kills without a trace, but kills
in the presence of watchers--kills whilst the victim is in the very arms
of those watchers! And yet escapes, unseen, unknown, without a clue to
tell when, where, or how he entered the room or left it; when, where, or
how he struck the blow, or why; yet did strike it, despite the sleepless
vigil of a man who not only sat up all night with the victim, but held
him in his arms to be sure that nobody could get at him; nobody so much
as approach him without his guardian's knowledge!"

Cleek twitched round sharply and sat up, leaning upon his elbow and
looking at Narkom as though he doubted his sanity.

"Let me have that again!" he said in sharp, crisp tones. "A man killed
whilst another man held him--held him in his arms--and watched over him,
and yet the other man saw nothing of the murderer? Is that what you
said?"

"That's it, precisely. Only I must tell you that, in the instance when
the victim was held in the arms of the person watching him, it was not a
man that was killed, but a boy. There had been a man killed, however,
four weeks previously in the same house, in the same mysterious manner,
and by the same unknown agency. A month earlier a woman, too, had been
done to death there in the same way. The man was the brother of that
boy, and the woman was the mother of both."

Cleek moved so quickly that he might fairly have been said to flash
from a sitting to a standing position, and then began to feel round in
his pockets for his cigarette case with a nervous sort of haste, which
Narkom knew and understood.

"Ah," he said, in a tone of satisfaction, "I thought the case would
interest you. You've been down in the dumps lately and needed something
to buck you up a bit. I told Captain Morford that this would be sure to
do it. Heard of him, haven't you? Extremely nice chap. Home on leave
from Bombay. Only recently got his captaincy. Grandson and heir to that
fine old snob, Sir Gilbert Morford, who's known everywhere as 'The
Titled Teapot.' You know, 'Morford & Morford's Unrivalled Tea.' Knighted
for something or other--the Lord knows what or why--and puts on more
side over his tin-plate title than Royalty itself. The Captain is a
decent sort, however. He'll give you the full particulars of this
astounding case. Wait a bit. I'll call him"--pausing a moment to