"No two questions about it, to my way of thinking," said he quietly, as
they traversed the darkness together. "That Captain Macdonald did the
thing--because of those footprints of his outside the window--and as he
couldn't or wouldn't give the reason of why he was in the grounds here
last night at that identical time. And the person he was shielding was
obviously Lady Paula. She, too, has been involved in this, though
whether in the actual murder or not, I'm not prepared to say. And Ross
Duggan, too. I imagine the whole thing is a put-up job; don't you,
Cleek?"

"I can't rightly say," returned Cleek in an uncertain tone. "Sometimes
it points one way and sometimes another. And I'm inclined to agree with
you where Lady Paula is concerned. She knows a good deal more than she
says, and is wily--deuced wily, as all drug-takers are. And the motive
would be there all right, judging from what Maud Duggan told me was the
share which Sir Andrew had apportioned out for his widow and her boy.
She'll double that easily enough. But to _kill_ for such a thing seems
incredible--though I've known of worse crimes for less reason than that.
But Ross Duggan's is the greatest motive of all, taking into
consideration just when the thing happened--_before_ his name was
erased, you must remember, Mr. Narkom, and as he's a dabster at
electricity and the only person with an air-pistol in the house ...
well, circumstantial evidence looks pretty black against him, doesn't
it?"

"It certainly does." Mr. Narkom's voice was a trifle apologetic. "Well,
I hardly know what to think, Cleek. And you're such a beggar for
stringing evidence together, and never forgetting it! And there's such a
dickens of a lot of evidence in this case that a chap gets horribly
involved, and his memory is likely to play him tricks. And then that
Italian chap whom Dollops has seen such a lot of to-day--where does he
come in?"

"Right into the midst of the whole caboosh," returned Cleek
enigmatically, "and don't you make any mistake about that, my friend.
Dicky-Dago, to use Dollops's name, is one of the prime movers in this
little inheritance game, and in another one also. A dollar to a ducat he
knows the whole thing, and Tweed Coat's with him."

"Who the dickens is Tweed Coat?"

"The gentleman whom Dollops so aptly described a few moments ago,"
returned Cleek quietly. "Perhaps you didn't notice Ross Duggan's coat
this morning, Mr. Narkom? No? Well, it was made of a v