right," he said with a quick smile. "If you will rest here, Lady Margaret, I will go on a voyage of discovery, and see what has become of the servants. Your aunt has probably gone to meet you. I shall not be long and I will light this other lamp for you so that you won't be quite so shadowy. There, that's better. Don't be afraid, Lady Margaret." With a friendly little nod of encouragement he disappeared through the door and came out into a network of passages which were all wainscoted, while the floors were covered with dust, as if they had been unswept for months. From room to room he went. Each one was more lonely, dark, and deserted than the last, yet over all there hung an indefinable dread that made Cleek, hardy of courage as he was, wish that his faithful henchman Dollops, or his friend and ally Superintendent Narkom, were within reach. The last room of all at the end of a passage proved to be a small ballroom, a low-ceilinged spot littered with dust, its corners thick with cobwebs. An odd chair or so stood against the wall, leaving the wax-polished parquetted floor strangely bare. But it was not this that struck Cleek. It was a sight in the far corner that caused him to stop suddenly and suck in his breath, while the torch in his firm fingers trembled as though for a moment the grip was relaxed.
For there, lying crumpled up in a lax, horrible heap, lay the figure of a woman! Cleek's torch shed a disk of light upon the upturned face and he sucked in his breath again, for the features were distorted and appalling, and death marked them with his unmistakable trace.
For an instant Cleek hesitated, and his mind went back to that pistol shot such a short time ago. This poor huddled Thing with its staring eyes and gaping, twisted mouth was the answer to it. He walked rapidly toward the body and saw that it was of an old woman of about seventy but who had evidently kept up the fiction of youth as long as she could, for her cheeks were heavy with rouge, her hair was obviously dyed to a bright golden colour and her rich silk dress in the most juvenile of fashions. As he noted the flashing rings on her fingers and the priceless lace at her wrists, Cleek began to understand a few things, and among them the reason why Lady Margaret had arrived in England to find no one waiting to welcome her at the station.
For here, without a doubt, was the Honourable Miss Cheyne. Who had murdered her, and for what reason, remained to be discovered. Robbery was out of the question, for many hundreds of pounds worth of jewellery was there on her hands in the shape of rings and bracelets. Revenge? For what? By whom?
Silently Cleek stood looking down on the body, his chin held between his thumb and forefinger, his brows furrowed. Here was a riddle indeed. For one moment he stood stock-still, then with a sudden bound leaped over to the window, which stood bare and curtainless, looked out on to the grounds, and stood listening. For a sound, slight but none the less distinct, the tiny cracking of a twig, had arrested his attention. What he saw made his heart and pulses hammer furiously. For a moment the impenetrable curtain of mist had lifted and the struggling moonbeams flung a shadowy path of light across the lawn over which moved the figure of a woman clad in white, clinging robes, her head swathed in a white turban. A woman, at such a time, in this place! The thing was so startling that Cleek's brain reeled. Involuntarily he made a movement as if to follow her, but even as he did so the figure turned, and Cleek's amazement deepened still further as he caught a glimpse of a dark face and what might have been a dark beard. The curtain of mist had descended again, and the scene was blotted out before its full significance had been realized.
A woman and at such an hour in such a place! At any other time, under any other circumstances, Cleek might have thought it one of the maids speeding away to a meeting with some yokel lover, but under these circumstances, when there was no evidence of a servant's care in the place, such an hypothesis was out of the question. Yet he was loath to believe a woman's hand could have committed such ruthless murder. He switched round now in sudden fear. At any moment Lady Margaret might be tired of waiting and follow on his track. At all costs she must be prevented from doing that, for the shock would surely prove beyond her strength.
He crossed the room, and groped his way into the passage again. There was no key in the door, so it was impossible to lock away the secret of the ballroom, but he piled up two or three chairs in order to minimize the risk.
Hurriedly he traversed the corridors which lay between the back of the house and the dining room where he had left Lady Margaret. Pushing open the door cautiously, he entered. To his unspeakable relief the girl had curled herself up in the big arm-chair and gone to sleep. A swift glance showed him that it would be useless to awaken her; she was plainly exhausted by the events of the day, and she would sleep like this for hours. Though greatly disliking the idea, Cleek could think of nothing better than to make for the village, arouse the police, and take Lady Margaret down to Miss Lorne's cottage.
Treading as lightly as a cat, Cleek tiptoed back into the hall, locked the door softly behind him, and sped away.
He meant to pass Ailsa's cottage without breaking the journey, for he dreaded telling her to what a tragedy they had brought their young charge, but at the little gate a slender figure awaited him. Cleek halted almost mechanically.
"I didn't mean to wait up a minute, for I am so tired myself," said Ailsa, "but you see, I wanted to learn whether the old lady was very angry."
She looked up into Cleek's sombre face, and was struck by its pallor. "Why, is there anything wrong?" she said quickly. "You look pale, dear, and upset. Tell me."
"Yes, very wrong indeed, Ailsa mine," responded Cleek grimly. "Miss Cheyne has been murdered, and I am driving down to rouse the police."
A cry of horror broke from Ailsa's parted lips. She caught Cleek's arm in her two hands, and her eyes sought his face. "Lady Margaret—is she in the limousine with you?" she asked anxiously.
Cleek twitched back his shoulders and shook his head.
"No, dear. She is sound asleep in the dining room; locked in. I did not want to rouse her until I had got the police in charge. When I have I will bring her back to you."
"Let me come with you," said Ailsa swiftly.
But this Cleek would not allow, for the tongues of village gossips are bitter things to fight.
"No, dear, I cannot permit that," he responded, looking down into her soft, misty eyes. "You understand, of course. And the child is perfectly safe, and will not wake for some time. Time enough for your charitable instincts to awaken when I bring her back to you. Now I must go."
CHAPTER III
IN THE DARK
Cleek drove the car out into the lane with an impetus and speed that would have broken the heart of any police official.
"She is bound to sleep," muttered Cleek, as he bent his hand on the steering wheel, for his heart was sick at the thought of Lady Margaret. "She won't waken yet; not if I know anything of tired human nature. And I could—could not take Ailsa there!"
He found the village police-station, which was quite a simple matter. To convince Constable Roberts of the gravity of the situation was another thing altogether, and Cleek's story of the empty house and the murdered woman was viewed with gravest suspicion.
"Lor bless yer, sir, but 'er ladyship was down 'ere only this afternoon," said that gentleman with an air of dull finality, which made Cleek, his nerves on edge, long to shake some of the
