ey, lend a hand, old chap. We can
get him upstairs without the assistance of this human trombone, I know."

But "this human trombone" was not minded that they should; and so it
fell out that, when Lieutenant Forshay led Mrs. Somerby-Miles from the
room, and young Bawdrey and Captain Travers carried the stricken man up
the stairs to his own bedchamber, his wife flying in advance to see that
everything was prepared for him, Cleek, standing all alone beside the
shattered cabinet, could hear Mr. Robert Murdock's dismal croakings
rumbling steadily out as he mounted the staircase with the others.

For a moment after the closing door of a room overhead had shut them
from his ears, he stood there, with puckered brows and pursed-up lips,
drumming with his finger-tips a faint tattoo upon the framework of the
shattered lid; then he walked over to the skeleton case, and silently
regarded the gruesome thing within.

"Nine fingers," he muttered sententiously, "and the ninth curves inward
to the palm!" He stepped round and viewed the case from all points; both
sides, the front, and even the narrow space made at the back by the
angle of the corner where it stood. And after this he walked to the
other end of the room, took the key from the lock, slipped it in his
pocket, and went out, closing the door behind him, that none might
remember it had not been locked when the master of the place was carried
above.

It was, perhaps, twenty minutes later that young Bawdrey came down and
found him all alone in the smoking-room, bending over the table whereon
the butler had set the salver containing the whisky decanter, the soda
siphon, and the glasses that were always laid out there that the
gentlemen might help themselves to the regulation "night-cap" before
going to bed.

"I've slipped away to have a word in private with you, Headland," he
said in an agitated voice, as he came in. "Oh, what consummate actors
they are, those two. You'd think her heart was breaking, wouldn't you?
You'd think---- Hallo! I say! What on earth are you doing?" For as he
came nearer he could see that Cleek had removed the glass stopper of the
decanter, and was tapping with his finger-tips a little funnel of white
paper, the narrow end of which he had thrust into the neck of the
bottle.

"Just adding a harmless little sleeping-draught to the nightly
beverage," said Cleek, in reply, as he screwed up the paper funnel and
put it in his pocket. "A good sound sleep is