chap, I must say."

Keep up his heart!... And there was a chance of someone else taking his
share of the damnable thing, after all!... But Lester Stark wouldn't
_kill_. Perhaps not--and yet, some months ago he had told him to his face
that he'd like to send Wynne's body to burn in hell!... H'm. Well, he
would have to keep his mouth shut upon _that_ conversation, at all
events, or they'd have poor Stark by the heels the next minute.... But
somehow his heart had lightened. Cleek didn't seem such a bad chap, after
all. And they couldn't hang him yet, anyhow.

For the rest of the long, dreary day the memory of that I.O.U. with
Lester Stark's name sprawled across the bottom of it, in the dashing
caligraphy that he knew, danced before his mind's eye like a fleeting
hope, making the day less long.

CHAPTER XVIII

POSSIBLE EXCITEMENT

Meanwhile, Cleek, Mr. Narkom, and Dollops stayed on at the Towers for
such time as it would take to have the coroner's inquest arranged, and
Merriton brought up before the local magistrate.

Mr. Narkom was frankly uneasy over the whole affair.

"There's something fishy in it, Cleek," he kept saying. "I don't like
the looks of it. Taking that innocent boy up for a murder which I feel
certain he never committed. Of course, circumstantial evidence points
strongly against him, but--"

"He's better out of the way, at all events," interposed Cleek. "Mind you,
I don't say the chap is innocent. Men of Wynne's calibre have the knack
of raising the very devil in a person who is under their influence for
long. And there's Borkins's story." The queer little one-sided smile
looped up his cheek for a moment and was gone again in a twinkling. He
crossed to where Mr. Narkom stood, and put a hand on his arm. "Tell me,"
he said, quietly, "did you ever hear of a chap squirming and moaning and
doing the rest of the things that the man said Wynne was doing in the
garden pathway, when a bullet had got him clean through the brain?
Something 'fishy' there, if you like."

"I should think so," replied Mr. Narkom. "Why, the chap would have died
instantly. Then you think Borkins himself is guilty?"

"On the contrary, I do not," returned Cleek, emphatically. "If my
theory's correct, Borkins is not the murderer of Dacre Wynne. Much more
likely to be Nigel Merriton, for that matter. Then there's the question
of this I.O.U. that I found on the body. Signed 'Lester Stark', and the
doctor--Gad! what a loyal fr