eplied Cleek airily.
"Reckon I'll have to hunt up something a bit more promising, then.
Don't mind my poking about a bit, do you?"

"Not in the slightest, signor," replied the Italian, and glanced
sympathizingly up at Trent and gave his shoulders a significant
shrug, as if to say: "Is this the best that Scotland Yard can turn
out?" when Cleek began turning over costume plates and looking under
books and scraps of material which lay scattered about the floor,
and even took to examining the jugs and vases and tumblers in which
the signor's bunches of cut flowers were placed. There were many of
them--on tables and chairs and shelves, and even on the platform of
the tableau itself--so many, in fact, that he was minded, by their
profusion, of what Trent had said regarding the old waxworker's
great love of flowers.

He looked round the room, in an apparently perfunctory manner, but
in reality with a photographic eye for its every detail, finding that
it agreed in every particular with the description which Trent had
given him.

There were the cheap lace curtains all along the glazed side which
overlooked the short passage leading down to the narrow alley, but
they were of so thin a quality, and so scantily patterned, that the
mesh did not obstruct the view in any manner, merely rendering it a
trifle hazy; for he could himself see from where he stood the window
in the side of the house opposite, and, seated at that window, Mrs.
Sherman and her daughter, busy at their endless sewing.

And there, too, were the blinds--strong blue linen ones running
on rings and cords--with which, as he had been told, it was
possible to arrange the light as occasion required. They were
fashioned somewhat after the manner of those seen in the studios of
photographers--several sectional ones overhead and one long one for
that side of the room which overlooked the short passage; and,
as showing how minute was Cleek's inspection for all its seeming
indifference, it may be remarked that he observed a peculiarity
regarding that long blind which not one person in a hundred would
have noticed. That is to say, that, whereas, when one looks at a
window from the interior of a room, one invariably finds that the
blinds are against the glass, and that the curtains are so hung
as to be behind them when viewed from the street, here was a case
of the exactly opposite arrangement being put into force; to
wit: It was the lace curtains which hung against the