rdial nod brought from the young man a demand to see "Mr.
Cleek," of whom he had heard such wonderful tales. Mr. Narkom, with one
eye on that very gentleman's back, announced gravely that Cleek was
absent on a government case, and asked what he could do. He waved a hand
in Cleek's direction and said that here was one of his men who would
doubtless be able to help Sir Nigel in any difficulty he might happen
to be in at the moment.

Now, as Sir Nigel's story was a long one, and as the young man was
too agitated to tell it altogether coherently, we will go back for a
certain space of time, and tell the very remarkable story, the details
of which were told to Mr. Narkom and his nameless associate in the
Superintendent's office, and which was to involve Cleek of Scotland Yard
in a case which was later to receive the title of the Riddle of the
Frozen Flame.

Much that he told them of his family history was already known to Cleek,
whose uncanny knowledge of men and affairs was a by-word, but as that
part of the story itself was not without romance, it must be told too,
and to do so takes the reader back to a few months before his present
visit to the precincts of the Law, when Sir Nigel Merriton returned to
England after twelve years of army life in India. A few days he had spent
in London, renewing acquaintances, revisiting places he knew--to find
them wonderfully little changed--and then had journeyed to Merriton
Towers, the place which was to be his, due to the extraordinary
disappearance of his uncle--a disappearance which was yet to be
explained.

Ill luck had often seemed to dog the footsteps of his house and even his
journey home was not without a mishap; nothing serious, as things turned
out, but still something that might have been vastly so. His train was in
a wreck, rather a nasty one, but Nigel himself had come out unscathed,
and much to be congratulated, he thought, since through that wreck he has
become acquainted with what he firmly believed to be the most beautiful
girl in the world. Better yet, he had learned that she was a neighbour of
his at Merriton Towers. That fact helped him through what he felt was
going to be somewhat of an ordeal--his entrance into the gloomy and
ghost-ridden old house of his inheritance.

CHAPTER II

THE FROZEN FLAMES

Merriton Towers had been called the loneliest spot in England by many
of the tourists who chanced to visit the Fen district, and it was no
misnomer. Ni