room last night
before I came, Miss Duggan?"

"None that I know of. It's peculiar, to say the least of it."

H'm. Then among this little company around and about him Cleek
registered the fact that one might include a thief and a murderer. Not
any too pleasant a thought, when the guilt could not definitely be fixed
upon any single one. But stay!--there was the boy Cyril, and if that
will had been stolen, why should not he have done it as much as anybody?
He and his mother would benefit more if the will disappeared entirely
than by the simple bequests which Maud Duggan had told him had been left
to them. A widow had always a third share by law, that was an understood
thing; and a third share of this enormous estate meant a good deal more
than one at first imagined. The boy Cyril must be interviewed in due
course.

Then there was another point to be taken up, the question of Captain
Macdonald's presence in these grounds last night, shortly after the
murder had taken place. That gentleman must account for his movements in
the proper quarter. And if by any chance there were footprints outside
that very window, then--b'gad! he, too, might be included in the circle
of possible criminals.

He strode quickly over to the window and leaned out of it, looking down
upon the flower-bed beneath it, just a matter of three feet or so, and
the little walled-in courtyard that girt it about. Eh? what? There were
marks in the soft earth, and plenty of 'em!

Then the assembled company fairly gasped at his next action, while Mr.
Narkom, knowing him better than they did, pelted over to the window and
leaned out of it. For Cleek had climbed upon the ledge and had let
himself down--light as a cat--down on to the bed, and stood looking in
through the window at them with serenely smiling face.

"Gad!" he ejaculated excitedly. "Well, and why not? Footprints!...
Constable, just nip along into the village, and fetch me back Captain
Angus Macdonald. I want to speak to him rather particularly. Tell him
it's the Law--and that he's got to come--and he'll come along pretty
lively, I can promise you."

The constable nipped along forthwith, while of a sudden Maud Duggan's
flushed face went white as a dead face, and her eyes fairly blazed at
him.

"Captain Macdonald! Oh, it's ridiculous, Mr. Deland!--absurd! What on
earth are you dragging _him_ in for? You must be mad to think for one
moment----"

Cleek held up a silencing hand before he dropped