e there are lights and people," he said. "That I
always look the same in your eyes, Miss Lorne, is because I have but one
face for you, and that is my real one. Not many people see it, even
among the men of The Yard whom I occasionally work with. You do,
however; so does Mr. Narkom, occasionally. So did that boy,
unfortunately. I had to show it when I came to your assistance, if only
to assure you that you were in friendly hands and to prevent you taking
fright and running off into the mist in a panic and losing yourself
where even I might not be able to find you. That is why I told the boy
to apply for work to 'Captain Burbage of Clarges Street.' _I_ am Captain
Burbage, Miss Lome. Nobody knows that but my good friend Mr. Narkom and,
now, you."

"I shall respect it, of course," she said. "I hope I need not assure you
of that, Mr. Cleek."

"You need assure me of nothing, Miss Lome," he made reply. "I owe so
much more to you than you are aware, that--Oh, well, it doesn't matter.
You asked me a question a moment ago. If you want the answer to it--look
here."

He stopped short as he spoke; the pocket-torch clicked faintly and from
the shelter of a curved hand, the glow of it struck upward to his face.
It was not the same face for ten seconds at a time. What Sir Horace
Wyvern had seen in Mr. Narkom's private office at Scotland Yard on that
night of nights more than two years ago, Sir Horace Wyvern's niece saw
now.

"Oh!" she said, with a sharp intaking of the breath as she saw the
writhing features knot and twist and blend. "Oh, don't! It is uncanny!
It is amazing. It is awful!" And, after a moment, when the light had
been shut off and the man beside her was only a shape in the mist: "I
hope I may never see you do it again," she merely more than whispered.
"It is the most appalling thing. I can't think how you do it--how you
came by the power to do such a thing."

"Perhaps by inheritance," said Cleek, as they walked on again. "Once
upon a time, Miss Lorne, there was a--er--lady of extremely high
position who, at a time when she should have been giving her thoughts
to--well, more serious things, used to play with one of those curious
little rubber faces which you can pinch up into all sorts of distorted
countenances--you have seen the things, no doubt. She would sit for
hours screaming with laughter over the droll shapes into which she
squeezed the thing. Afterward, when her little son was born, he
inherited the trick