up (and pay down) and receive that interesting
document, otherwise my application would be void, et cetera. This,
as it happens, is the 'given day' in question; and as the office
doesn't open for business before ten A. M., and there wasn't the
least likelihood of my being able to get back to it before noon,
when you were calling for me--'there you have the whole thing in a
nutshell,' as the old woman said when she poisoned the filberts."

Meanwhile, Narkom had opened the envelope and glanced over the
document it contained. He now sat up with a jerk and voiced a cry of
amazement.

"Good Lord, deliver us!" he exclaimed. "In favour of Dollops!"

"Yes," said Cleek. "He's a faithful little monkey and--I've nothing
else to leave him. There's always a chance, you know--with Margot's
lot and Waldemar's. I shouldn't like to think of the boy being forced
back into the streets if--anything should happen to me."

"Well, I'll be----What a man! What a man! Cleek, my dear, dear
friend--my comrade--my pal----"

"Chuck it! Scotland Yard with the snuffles is enough to make the
gods shriek, you dear old footler! Why, God bless your old soul,
I----Brakes on! Let's talk about the new limousine. She's a beauty,
isn't she? Locker, mirror: just like the old red one, and----Hello!
I say, you are taking me into the country, I perceive; we've left
the town behind us."

"Yes; we're bound for Darsham."

"Darsham? That's in Suffolk, isn't it? And about ninety-five miles
from Liverpool Street Station, as the crow flies. So our little
business to-day is to be an out-of-town affair, eh? Well, let's have
it. What's the case? Burglary?"

"No--murder. Happened last night. Got the news over the telephone
this morning. Nearly bowled me over when I heard it, by James! for I
saw the man alive--in town--only the day before yesterday. It's a
murder of a peculiarly cunning and cleverly contrived character,
Cleek, with no apparent motive, and absolutely no clue as to what
means the assassin used to kill his victim, nor how he managed to get
in and out of the place in which the crime was committed. There
isn't the slightest mark on the body. The man was not shot, not
stabbed, not poisoned, nor did he die from natural causes. There is
no trace of a struggle, yet the victim's face shows that he died in
great agony, and was beyond all question the object of a murderous
attack."

"Hum-m!" said Cleek, stroking his chin. "Sounds interesting, at all
events.