, his head downbent. But Cleek had seen the
moonlight upon his face, and knew his man at last. Ross Duggan had worn
that coat this morning, or one so like it that even he, hawk-eyed
detective that he was, could have told no difference between them. The
moonlight struck upon the white bosom of his evening-dress shirt,
making it shine like a strip of ivory, and at something which his
companion said to him, he caught it close together, and turned the
collar of the jacket up about his throat.

First the handkerchief so plainly marked "R. D." and now this! But that
such a man should be mixed up in a thing of this sort, an illicit thing
which was against all laws and regulations of the land that had borne
him, made Cleek's mouth go grim. The handkerchief, the coat; and
now--the man. That little chain was completed, and every link welded
together. At least some part of the mystery was clear at last.

The pair passed close against them where they lay in the darkness, so
close that Cleek's fingers might have reached out and caught at the
other's trouser-leg and tripped him. But the time was not yet ripe for
arrests. Better let the thing go unsuspected until to-morrow afternoon,
and then, when the Coroner's Inquest was at hand, rally them all
together in the library once more, and make the final settlement.

Here was only a part of the thing, not the whole thing itself, and if he
knew one of his men, he did not yet feel certain of the other. The night
should bring that uncertainty into clarity if possible.

The darkness hid the couple from view at length, and when their
footsteps had died away into silence, Cleek touched Dollops upon the
shoulder and commenced wriggling upon his stomach down toward the next
furze-bush, and out into the open, lying flat as Indians do, until they
had slid the distance between the two clumps of shrubs, and lay
concealed, some twelve feet nearer to the scene of operations.

"See anything of your Dago friend?" whispered Cleek, after they had
watched for a while in silence at this hive of living industry which,
when the dawn had penetrated through the veil of night, would have
passed out of sight and vision as though it were a mirage of their own
imagining.

Dollops's voice was barely above a breath.

"Yessir. Just dahn there ter the right. Feller wiv the big black
moustache. Slim-'ipped Johnny in the dark suit. Got blinkers on 'im like
black velvet from wot I sees. Proper furriner--the dirty do