Indeed, I, myself, could give you the formula
were it required."

"_You?_ Gad, man! what don't you know? In heaven's name, Cleek, what
caused you to dip into all these unholy things?"

"The same impulse which causes a drowning man to grip at a straw,
Mr. Narkom--the desire for self-preservation. Remember what I was in
those other days, and with whom I associated. Believe me, the
statement that there is honour among thieves is a pleasant fiction
and nothing more; for once a man sets out to be a professional
thief, he and honour are no longer on speaking terms. I never could
be wholly sure, with that lot; and my biggest _coups_ were always a
source of danger to me after they had been successfully completed.
It became necessary for me to study _all_ poisons, all secret arts
of destruction, that I might guard against them and might know the
proper antidote. As for the rest--Sh! Mumm's a fine wine. Here comes
the landlady with the tea. We'll drop the 'case' until afterward."

* * * * *

"Now tell me," said Cleek, after the landlady had gone and they
were again in sole possession of the room, "what is it this Lady
Essington wants of me? And what sort of a chap is this grandson in
whose interest she is acting? Is he with her in this appeal to the
Yard?"

"Certainly not, my dear fellow. Why, he's little more than a
baby--not over three at the most. Ever hear anybody speak of the
'Golden Boy,' old chap?"

"What! The baby Earl of Strathmere? The little chap who inherited a
title and a million through the drowning of his parents in the wreck
of the yacht _Mystery_?"

"That's the little gentleman: the Right Honourable Cedric Eustace
George Carruthers, twenty-seventh Earl Strathmere, variously known
as the 'Millionaire Baby' and the 'Golden Boy.' His mother was Lady
Essington's only daughter. She was only eighteen when she married
Strathmere: only twenty-two when she and her husband were drowned, a
little over a year ago."

"Early enough to go out of the world, that--poor girl!" said Cleek,
sympathetically. "And to leave that little shaver all alone--robbed
at one blow of both father and mother. Hard lines, my friend, hard
lines! It is fair to suppose, is it not, that, with the death of his
parents, the care and guidance of his little lordship fell to the
lot of his grandmother, Lady Essington?"

"No, it did not," replied Narkom. "One might have supposed that it
would, seeing t