us
boy like that and anxious, too, that the lady of his heart should be
freed from the one thing, the one man, whose existence made her
everlastingly unattainable, in the hands of a clever woman like Anita
Rosario such a chap could be made to identify anything and to believe it
as religiously as he believes. Now, go to bed and rest easy, Major. I'm
going to call up Dollops and do a little night prowling. If it turns out
as I hope, this little riddle will be solved to-morrow."

"But how, Mr. Cleek? It seems to me that it is as dark as ever. You put
my poor old head in a whirl. You say there is swindling; you hint one
moment that the body was not that of Ulchester, and in the next that
murder has been done. Do, pray, tell me what it all means, what you make
of this amazing case?"

"I'll do that to-morrow, Major; not to-night. The answer to the
riddle--the answer that's in my mind, I mean--is at once so simple and
yet so appallingly awful that I'll hazard no guess until I'm sure. Look
here"--he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a gold piece--"do
you know what that is, Major?"

"It looks like a spade guinea, Mr. Cleek."

"Right; it is a spade guinea, a pocket piece I've carried for years.
You've heard, no doubt, of vital things turning upon the tossing of a
coin. Well, if you see me toss this coin to-morrow, something of that
sort will occur. It will be tossed up in the midst of a riddle, Major;
when it comes down it will be a riddle no longer."

Then he opened the door, closed it after him, and, before the Major
could utter a word, was gone.

III

The promise was so vague, so mystifying, indeed, so seemingly absurd,
that the Major did not allow himself to dwell upon it. As a matter of
fact, it passed completely out of his mind; nor did it again find
lodgment there until it was forced back upon his memory in a most
unusual manner.

Whatsoever had been the result of what Cleek had called his "night
prowling," he took nobody into his confidence when he and the major and
the major's son and Senorita Rosario met at breakfast the next day
(Zuilika, true to her training and the traditions of her people, never
broke morning bread save in the seclusion of her own bedchamber, and
then on her knees with her face toward the East) nor did he allude to it
at any period throughout the day.

He seemed, indeed, purposely to avoid the major, and to devote himself
to the Spanish woman with an ardour that was positivel