Everything
successfully carried out. Muffled clapper. Must see you.
Utmost importance.

A. M.

"Hello! Hello!" rapped out Cleek in the sharp staccato of excitement.
"Then she _did_ have something to do with it, after all, did she? Gad! a
dollar to a ducat that there's someone else in this affair whom we've
never even hit upon yet! What a bit of luck Dollops turned up at that
moment--when _she_ was just on the way! Let's see--what's the time?
Three o'clock. Gad! I'll nip along myself, and come in at the finish,
and hear what I can hear from the good lady's lips herself, and see who
the dickens it is who's meeting her. There's more in this than meets the
eye, Cleek my boy, and don't you forget it!"

Following the direction shown him by Mr. Narkom (who was still standing
like a monument of Patience in the little shrubbery where they had first
caught sight of her wandering ladyship), Cleek pelted off in the
direction of the woods, every faculty alert, and in the hastily donned
rubber-soled shoes proving himself a silent if a fleet-footed pursuer.

But he was doomed to disappointment upon his quest. For halfway toward
the Great Free Road as that portion of the country was called, through a
belt of thick trees which entirely hid the landscape from view, he met
Dollops, looking disconsolately upon the ground, hands in pockets and
face dejected, and cannoned into him as they came abreast of each other.

Dollops's face went crimson at sight of Cleek, and then paled off
suddenly. His voice was tragic in the extreme.

"Missed 'er, Guv'nor!" he declared laconically. "Missed 'er for the
first time in all my existence upon this 'ere plannit! Give me the slip,
strite she did, but _'ow_, is a question as 'as fair diddled me. I
follered 'er up to 'ere as good as you please, and then of a suddint
'eard voices to the left of me, did a bunk after 'em, as I knowed you'd
wish me to, sir, and--that there she-devil 'ad disappeared as smooth as
you please! A fair ghost she were, Guv'nor, strite--an' if she ain't the
Peasant Girl wot 'aunts these parts, then I'm a Dutchman!"

But Cleek had not the heart to smile at the boy's excited preamble. He
was too disappointed at losing his quarry so easily when this new thing
had been thrust right into his hands in this fashion, and the chance of
elucidating the mystery so incredibly easy--judging by the crumpled
note in his breast-pocket. Another such opportunity would never occur
ag