ad only just descended. One of them had his back to
him, but the other's face was in full view. It was a dark,
swarthy-skinned face, with black eyes and crisp black moustache curling
upon the upper lip, the slim nose and aquiline features revealing to the
watching lad the very evident fact that here was a genuine Italian.

And the other? He'd seen that tweed coat before, surely--but where?
Where? He racked his brains to think. Somewhere that tweed coat had
crossed his vision once before during that day, and in some
unaccountable manner it was associated in his mind with Sir Ross Duggan
himself....

The men moved quietly, blew out the candle, and then opened the door
opposite and began to climb up the stone stairway into the fresh air,
creeping about like mice.

Meanwhile Dollops, afraid no longer, and all his being afire to get to
his master with news of this new development--and so make up for his
slowness this afternoon, when the lady had so successfully given him the
slip right here within his reach--stood stock-still, raking every corner
of that fertile young brain of his for the clue which eluded him.

And then--quite suddenly--he _knew_.

CHAPTER XX

"PINS AND NEEDLES"

Twenty minutes later he presented himself once more at the back door,
and asked in scathing accents for Mr. Jarvis, dangling the keys of the
wine-cellar in one careless hand.

That gentleman appeared to him, changed for his evening duties in the
dining-room, and with one eye upon the clock, clapped him upon the
shoulder and guffawed into his face.

"Blinkin' idiot!" thought Dollops, as he grinned back. "Might er
frightened me into foamin' at the mouth like a bloomin' 'oss, he might."
Then, aloud: "Nice practical joke ter play upon a feller, eh, Mr.
Jarvis? Nah! if I'd been sufferin' wiv me nerves and 'avin' calisthenics
wot's so fashionable just at presint, you could of sent me to my
coffin--strite."

"But you're alive an' kickin' now, me 'earty!" returned Jarvis, with
another guffaw, "an' lookin' in the pink, I must s'y. What about them
bottles of port?--or didn't yer stop ter look into the wine-cellar?
Didn't bring 'em up, I notice."

"No." Dollops's smile was catching. "But I nearly brought up sumthink
else, I kin tell yer--an' that's me 'eart, for it were a-sittin' in me
mouf like as though it would choke me! I've 'arf a mind ter cut you out
of me will, Mr. Jarvis. But, seriously speakin', where's my gentleman?
I've a not