the corner, sir, to get a fresh supply of them cigarettes you're so partial to, so he sat down and waited. And, oh, I say, guv'ner?"
"Yes?" said Cleek inquiringly, stopping in his two-steps-at-a-time ascent of the stairs.
"Letter come for you, too, sir, whilst you was out. Envellup wrote in a lady's hand, and directed to 'Captain Burbage.' Took it up and laid it on your table, sir."
"All right," said Cleek, and resumed his journey up the stairs, passing a moment later into his private room and the presence of Maverick Narkom.
The superintendent, who was standing by the window looking out into the brilliant radiance of the morning, turned as he heard the door creak, and immediately set his back to the things that had nothing to do with the conduct of Scotland Yard, and advanced toward his famous ally with that eagerness and enthusiasm which he reserved for matters connected with crime and the law.
"My dear Cleek, such a case; you'll fairly revel in it," he began excitedly. "As I didn't expect to find you out at this hour of the morning, I dispensed with the formality of 'phoning, hopped into the car, and came on at once. Dollops said you'd be back in half a minute, and," looking at his watch, "it's now ten since I arrived."
"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Narkom," broke in Cleek, "but—look at these," pulling the tissue paper from an oblong parcel he was carrying in his hand and exposing to view a cluster of lilies of the valley and La France roses. "They are what detained me. Budleigh, the florist, had his window full of them, fresh from Covent Garden this morning, and I simply couldn't resist the temptation. If God ever made anything more beautiful than a rose, Mr. Narkom, it is yet to be discovered. Sit down, and while you are talking I'll arrange these in this vase. No; it won't distract my attention from what you are saying, believe me. Somehow, I can always think better and listen better when there are flowers about me, and if——"
He chopped off the sentence suddenly and laid the flowers down upon his table with a briskness born of sudden interest. His eye had fallen upon the letter of which Dollops had spoken. It was lying face upward upon the table, so that he could see the clear, fine, characterful hand in which it was written and could read clearly the Devonshire postmark.
"My dear Cleek," went on Narkom, accepting the invitation to be seated, but noticing nothing in his eagerness to get to business, "my dear Cleek, never have I brought you any case which is so likely to make your fortune as this, and when I tell you that the reward offered runs well into five figures——"
"A moment, please!" interjected Cleek agitatedly. "Don't think me rude, Mr. Narkom, but—your pardon a thousand times. I must read this letter before I give attention to anything else, no matter how important!"
Then, not waiting for Narkom to signify his consent to the interruption, as perforce he was obliged to do in the circumstances, he carried the letter over to the window, broke the seal, and read it, his heart getting into his eyes and his pulses drumming with that kind of happiness which fills a man when the one woman in the world writes him a letter.
Even if he had not recognized her handwriting, he must have known from the postmark that it was from Ailsa Lorne, for he had no correspondent in Devonshire, no correspondent but Narkom anywhere, for the matter of that. His lonely life, the need for secrecy, his plan of self-effacement, prevented that. But he had known for months that Miss Lorne was in Devon, that she had gone there as governess in the family of Sir Jasper Drood, when her determination not to leave England had compelled her to resign her position as guide and preceptress to little Lord Chepstow on the occasion of his mother's wedding with Captain Hawksley. And now to have her write to him—to him! A sort of mist got into his eyes and blurred everything for a moment. When it had passed and he could see clearly, he set his back to Narkom and read these words:
The Priory, Tuesday, June 10th.
Dear Friend:
If you remember, as I so often do, that last day in London, when you put off the demands of your duty to see me safely in the train and on my way to this new home, you will perhaps also remember something that you said to me at parting. You told me that if a time ever came when I should need your friendship or your help, I had but to ask for them. If that is true, and I feel sure that it is, dear Mr. Cleek, I need them now. Not for myself, however, but for one who has proved a kind friend indeed since my coming here, and who, through me, asks your kind aid in solving a deep and distressing mystery and saving a threatened human life. No reward can be offered, I fear, beyond that which comes of the knowledge of having done a good and generous act, Mr. Cleek, for my friend is not in a position to offer one. But I seem to feel that this will weigh little with you, and it emboldens me to make this appeal. So, if no other case prevents, and you really wish to do me a favour, if you can make it convenient to be in the neighbourhood of the lych-gate of Lyntonhurst Church on Wednesday morning at eleven o'clock, you will win the everlasting gratitude of—
Your sincere friend,
Ailsa Lorne.
The superintendent heard the unmistakable sound of the letter being folded and slid back into its envelope, and very properly concluded that the time of grace had expired.
"Now, my dear Cleek, let us get down to business," he began forthwith. "This amazing case which I wish you to undertake and will, as I have already said, bring you a colossal reward——"
"Your pardon, Mr. Narkom," interjected Cleek, screwing round on his heel and beginning to search for a railway guide among the litter of papers and pamphlets jammed into the spaces of a revolving bookcase, "your pardon, but I can undertake no case, sir—at least, for the present. I am called to Devonshire, and must start at once. What's that? No, there is nothing to be won, not a farthing piece. It's a matter of friendship, nothing more."
"But, Cleek! God bless my soul, man, this is madness. You are simply chucking away enough money to keep you for the next three years."
"It wouldn't make any difference if it were enough to keep me for the next twenty, Mr. Narkom. You can't buy entrance to paradise for all the money in the world, my friend, and I'm getting a day in it for nothing! Now then," flirting over the leaves of the guide book, "let's see how the trains run. Dorset—Darsham—Dalby—Devonshire. Good! Here you are. Um-m-m. Too late for that. Can't possibly catch that one, either. Ah, here's the one—1.56—that will do." Then he closed the book, almost ran to the door, and, leaning over the banister, shouted down the staircase, "Dollops—Dollops, you snail, where are you? Dol—— Oh, there you are at last, eh? Pack my portmanteau. Best clothes, best boots, best everything I've got, and look sharp about it. I'm off to Devonshire by the 1.56."
And, do all that he might, Narkom could not persuade him to alter his determination. The 1.56 he said he would take; the 1.56 he did take; and night coming down over the peaceful paths and the leafy loveliness of Devon found him putting up at the inn of "The Three Desires," hours and hours and hours ahead of the appointed time, to make sure of being at the trysting place at eleven next morning.
He was. On the very tick of the minute he was there at the old moss-grown lych-gate, and there Miss Lorne found him when she drove up in Lady Drood's pony phaeton a little time afterward. She was not alone, however. She had spoken of a friend, and a sharp twitch disturbed Cleek's heart when he saw that a young man sat beside her, a handsome young man of two-or three-and-twenty, with a fair moustache, a pair of straight-looking blue eyes, and that squareness of shoulder and uprightness of bearing which tells the tale of a soldier.
In another moment she had alighted, her fingers were lying in the close grasp of Cleek's, and the colour was coming and going in rosy gusts over her smiling countenance.
"How good of you to come!" she said. "But, there! I knew that
