t out
by way of the front of the building, Cleek, and if I can once get to
the telegraph and wire to the coast--and he hasn't yet sailed----Come
on! come on! Or no: wait a moment. That's a constable out there,
asking for information. I'll nip out and let him know that the
Yard's on the case and give him a few orders about reporting it.
Wait for me at the front door, old chap. With you in a winking."

He stepped out into the alley as he spoke and mingled with the
gathering crowd.

But Cleek did not stir. The alley was no longer dark for, with the
gathering of the crowd, lights had come and he stood for many minutes
staring into it and breathing hard and the colour draining slowly
out of his face until it was like a thing of wax.

Outside in the narrow alley the gathering of curious ones which
the sound of the explosion and the sight of a running policeman
had drawn to the place was every moment thickening, and with the
latest addition to it there had come hurrying into the narrow space
a morbid-minded newsboy with the customary bulletin sheet pinned over
his chest.

"The _Evening News_! Six o'clock edition!" that bulletin was headed,
and under that heading there was set forth in big black type:

END OF THE MAURAVANIAN REVOLUTION
FALL OF THE CAPITAL
FLIGHT OF THE DEPOSED KING
OVERWHELMING SUCCESS OF IRMA'S TROOPS.

"Mr. Narkom," said Cleek, when at the end of ten minutes the
superintendent came bustling back, hot and eager to begin the
effort to head off Count Waldemar. "Mr. Narkom, dear friend, the
days of trouble and distress are over and the good old times you
have so often sighed for have come back. Look at that newsboy's
bulletin. Waldemar is too late in all things and--we have seen
the last of him forever."

EPILOGUE

The Affair of the Man Who Was Found

Mr. Maverick Narkom glanced up at the calendar hanging on the office
wall, saw that it recorded the date as August 18th, and then glanced
back to the sheet of memoranda lying on his desk, and forthwith
began to scratch his bald spot perplexedly.

"I wonder if I dare do it?" he queried of himself in the unspoken
words of thought. "It seems such a pity when the beggar's wedding
day is so blessed near--and a man wants his last week of single
blessedness all to himself, by James--if he can get it! Still,
it's a case after his own heart; the reward's big and would be a