te
to get out of the room and to creep up to his own after they had
assembled, and the cigar cabinet and the whisky were being passed round,
and the doctor was busy above with the man who was somebody's victim.

* * * * *

The big old grandfather clock at the top of the stairs pointed ten
minutes past two, and the house was hushed of every sound save that
which is the evidence of deep sleep, when the door of Cleek's room swung
quietly open, and Cleek himself, in dressing-gown and wadded bedroom
slippers, stepped out into the dark hall, and, leaving Dollops on guard,
passed like a shadow over the thick, unsounding carpet.

The rooms of all the male occupants of the house, including that of
Philip Bawdrey himself, opened upon this passage. He went to each in
turn, unlocked it, stepped in, closed it after him, and lit the bedroom
candle.

The sleeping-draught had accomplished all that was required of it; and
in each and every room he entered--Captain Travers's, Lieutenant
Forshay's, Mr. Robert Murdock's--there lay the occupant thereof
stretched out at full length in the grip of that deep and heavy sleep
which comes of drugs.

Cleek made the round of the rooms as quietly as any shadow, even
stopping as he passed young Bawdrey's on his way back to his own to peep
in there. Yes; he, too, had got his share of the effective draught, for
there he lay snarled up in the bedclothes, with his arms over his head
and his knees drawn up until they were on a level with his waist, and
his handsome boyish face a little paler than usual.

Cleek didn't go into the room, simply looked at him from the threshold,
then shut the door, and went back to Dollops.

"All serene, guv'ner?" questioned that young man in an eager whisper.

"Yes, quite," his master replied, as he turned to a writing-table
whereon there lay a sealed note, and, pulling out the chair, sat down
before it and took up a pen. "Wait a bit, and then you can go to bed.
I'll give you still another note to deliver. While I'm writing it you
may lay out my clothes."

"Slipping off, sir?"

"Yes. You will stop here, however. Now, then, hold your tongue; I'm
busy."

Then he pulled a sheet of paper to him and wrote rapidly:

DEAR MR. BAWDREY--I've got my man, and am off to consult with
Mr. Narkom and to have what I've found analysed. I don't know
when I shall be back--probably not until the day after
to-morrow. You are righ