ime I
got into my togs, boy.... Here, just hand me that shirt, will you?"

That night certainly proved an even more exciting one than Cleek had
prophesied. The household retired early, as country households are apt
to do, but Cleek, however, did not undress. He sat at his window, which
faced upon the Fens, watching the trail of the flames dancing across the
horizon of night, and trying to solve the riddle that he had come to find
the answer to.

He heard the church clock in the distance chime out the hour of twelve;
and still he sat on. The peace of the quiet night stole over him, filling
his active brain with a restfulness that had been foreign to it for some
time in the stress of his busy life in London. He felt glad he had taken
up this case, if only for the view of the countryside at night, the
stillness of the untrod marshes, and the absolute absence of every living
thing at this hour.

The clock chimed one, and he heeded it not. Two--half-past--. Of a sudden
he sat bolt upright, then got noiselessly to his feet and glided across
the floor to where his bed stood--a monstrous black object with heavy
canopy and curtains, a relic of the Victorianism in which this house was
born. He moved like a cat, absolutely without sound, fleet, sure. His
fingers found the coverlet and he tore it down, tumbling the clothes and
pushing down the pillow so that it looked as if he himself lay there,
peacefully sleeping beneath the sheltering blankets.... Then, still
noiseless, panther-like, he slid his lithe figure under the bed.... Then
the noise came again. Just the whisper of footsteps in the wide hall, and
then--his door opened soundlessly and for a moment the footsteps stopped.
He could feel a presence in the room. If it were Dollops the lad would
give some sign. If not--He lay still, scarcely breathing in the
enveloping darkness. The footsteps came again, softly, softly padding
across the room toward him. He saw the black shadows of stockinged feet
as they crossed the path of moonlight, and sucked in his breath. Man's
feet!... Whose?... Then something shook the bedstead with tremendous
force, but without sound. It was as if some object had been hurled
forcibly into its softness. The footsteps turned again, hurriedly this
time, and there was a sound of a deep-drawn breath--a breath full of
pent-up, passionate hatred. Then the figure ran lightly across the room,
and as it flashed for a moment through the bar of moonlight, Cleek l