of light fell full upon it. Somebody had been digging in the earthen floor of the cell, and had made an attempt to hide the fact by sprinkling bits of stone and plaster scraped from the walls over it. In the ordinary course of things, and with a light less powerful than this of the electric torch, the thing would have passed muster very well, and would, in all probability, have escaped observation. Now, asked Cleek of himself, what the dickens should any one wish to dig in this place for? And, having dug, why try to disguise the fact? Hum-m-m!
He switched round suddenly, walked to the place where the spade stood, in the angle of the wall opposite, took it up, and, returning, began to dig where the digging had been done before.
This he had to do in the darkness, for the moment his thumb was removed from the button of the torch the light went out. But, having once located the place, this was not difficult, for the earth, having once before been disturbed, yielded easily to the spade.
For five—possibly six—minutes he worked on, shovelling out the loose earth and tossing it aside unseen; then, of a sudden, the spade encountered something which, though soft and yielding, would not allow the blade to penetrate it at all, press his foot down as hard as he might. If Cleek knew anything at all, he knew that that betokened a fabric of some sort, and knew, too, that he had got to the bottom of the original excavation.
He laid aside the spade, and the electric torch spat its light into the hole.
Clothing at the bottom of it—buried clothing!
He stooped and pulled it to the surface, letting the articles thus unearthed drop one by one from his fingers. A cap, a pair of trousers, a coat with a badge on it, a stick with a loop of leather by which to carry it, a belt, and a number on that belt.
He looked at the number; it was a brass "4." He looked at the badge, and then rose upright, clamping his jaws hard and understanding.
What he had unearthed was the clothing of the Common keeper who had been done to death last night—the clothing which the assassin had stolen and worn.
And he had found that clothing here, hidden in the grounds of Wuthering Grange! Why, then, in that case, the murderer—— He stopped; and the thought went no farther—stopped, and releasing the button of the torch, let utter darkness swing in and surround him.
Some one had entered the ruin—some one was moving about overhead.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE THUNDERBOLT
It was not a man's foot that made that soft noise; his trained ear recognized that fact at once. A woman, eh? What woman would be coming here at this time when all the ladies of the household would be in their rooms dressing for dinner?
He crept in the darkness out of the cell in which he had been digging, through the one next and through the next again, until he came to the passage leading to the staircase, and then, dropping on his hands and knees, went soundlessly up the stone steps.
Above him as he crept upward—as slow as any tortoise and with far less noise—sounded the woman's faint footfalls pacing the paved floor with that persistent restlessness which tells of extreme agitation. He had but just begun to ask himself what that agitation might portend, when something occurred which caused him to twitch up his head with a jerk and crouch there, a thing all eyes and ears.
The woman's footsteps had ceased abruptly, brought to a sudden halt by the ring of others—the nervous, heavy-heeled, fast-falling steps of an excited man coming across the drawbridge and into the ruin at a pace which was almost a run; and that man had no more than come into range of the woman's vision when the thin, eager voice of Lady Katharine Fordham sounded and made the situation clear.
It was a tryst—the lovers' meeting upon which Cleek had built such high hopes and upon which he had blundered by the merest fluke.
"Geoff!" sounded that enlightening voice, with a nervous catch in it which told of a hard-hammering heart. "Thank heaven you have come. Ailsa thinks I am in my room dressing for dinner. Now tell me what it is all about, there's a dear, for my head has been in a whirl ever since I read what you wrote. Why did you want me to come here and meet you without anybody knowing? Whatever can it be that you 'have to say to me that no one on this earth must hear'? Do tell me. I'm frightened half to death!"
"Are you?" His footsteps clicked sharply as he moved rapidly across the floor toward her. "You have not gone so far as I, then, for I believe I have been frightened past death, and that after this nothing on earth or in heaven or hell can appall me! Come here, into my arms, and let me hold you while I speak. How I love you! My God, how I love you!"
"Geoff!"
"Put your arms round me. Kiss me! I want you to know that I love you so well I'll fight all the dogs of justice and all the devils of hell but what I'll stand by you and save you from them. They can't kill my love for you. Nothing on God's earth can do that. I'll come between them and you no matter what happens, no matter what it costs me—life with all the rest. That's what I've come to tell you! But, oh, my God, Kathie, why didn't you let me kill him?"
"Kill him, Geoff? Good heavens, what are you talking about? Kill whom?"
"De Louvisan!"
"De Louvisan? Let you kill De Louvisan— I? Oh, my God! Geoff—you—think—I—killed—killed—him?"
Geoff groaned and buried his face in his hands. "There was no one in the house but you," he said hoarsely. "It was you who took me into the place; it was you who showed me his dead body spiked up there against the wall—you and you alone. My God! Kathie, what is the use of denying what we both know?"
Cleek sucked in his breath, drew every muscle of his body taut as wire, and then crouching back in the darkness listened intently.
Lady Katharine remained perfectly silent for a moment, as though she had been stricken dumb by the directness of the charge: as though the half-despairing, half-impatient protest of that final "What is the use of denying what we both know?" had impressed her with a realization of the utter futility of longer endeavouring to act a part.
It was either that that held her silent, Cleek told himself, or she was utterly amazed, utterly overcome by an accusation which had no foundation in fact and had fallen upon her like a thunderbolt. If the latter should prove to be the case, why, then, Geoff Clavering would be lying, and she would be wholly and entirely innocent of the crime with which he had charged her.
Then she spoke suddenly:
"You mean this thing? You really and truly mean it?"
Geoff bowed his head in silent assent.
"That I—I—did this thing?"
Still he could not answer, could not put into brutal words the conviction that had been forced upon him.
"That I met you and took you into Gleer Cottage last night?" she went on. "Took you in there and showed you that man's—body? I?"
"Not exactly showed it to me—that, as we both know, is an exaggeration. You showed me into the room where it was hanging, however. Or, at least, you waved me to the door and told me to go in there and wait a minute or two and you'd
