a crowd gathering about the door."

Cleek left the junior partner to explain the situation, stepped to
the side of the glass-room, looked down, saw that the statement was
quite true, and--stepped sharply back again.

"We shall have to defer removing our prisoner until it gets dark,
I fancy, Mr. Narkom," he said, serenely. "And with Mr. Trent's
permission we will make use of the door leading into the alley at
the back when that time comes. Bookkeeper!"

"Yes, sir?"

"You might explain to the constable on duty in the neighbourhood--if
he comes to inquire, that is--the cause of the disturbance, and that
Scotland Yard is in charge and Superintendent Narkom already on
the premises. That's all, thank you. You may close the door and take
your colleagues below. Hullo! our prisoner seems to be subsiding
into something akin to gibbering idiocy, Mr. Trent. Fright has
turned his brain, apparently. Let us make use of the respite from his
shrieks. You will, of course, wish to hear how I got on the track
of the man, and what were the clues which led up to the solving of
the affair. Well, you shall. Sit down, and while we are waiting
for the darkness to come I'll give you the complete explanation."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Colliver, who had now sunk into a state of babbling incoherence, lay
on his face in the wreck of the tableau, rolling his head from side
to side and clasping and unclasping his manacled hands.

Trent turned his back upon the unpleasant sight and, placing three
chairs at the opposite end of the room, dropped into one and lifted
an eager countenance to Cleek.

"Tell me first of all," he asked, "how under heaven you came to
suspect how the disappearance of the boy was managed? It seems like
magic, to me. When in the world did you get the first clue to it,
Mr. Cleek?"

"Never until I heard of those two women looking into this room
and seeing the vase of pink roses standing on a spindle-legged
table in the centre of it," he replied. "You see, even in the old
days when I had the other case in hand and was searching for a
clue to Colliver's disappearance, never had any one mentioned the
name of Loti to me. I knew, of course, that you made wax figures
here, but I never heard until this afternoon that Loti was the
man who was employed to model them. I also knew about the existence
of the glass-room and its position, for I had been at the pains
of inspecting it from the outside. That came about in this way:
Just