in
response, "one of these two men has made away with him. The question is,
which? and, also, why? when? where?" Then he turned to the captain's
daughter, and asked quietly: "Would you mind letting me see the room
from which the young man disappeared? I confess I haven't the ghost of
an idea regarding the case, captain; but if you don't mind letting your
daughter show me the room----"

"Mind? Good Lord, no!" responded the captain. "All I want to know is,
what became of the poor boy, and if there's any likelihood of his ever
coming back alive. I'd go up with you myself, only you see how helpless
I am. Mary, take Mr. Headland to the room. And please don't stop any
longer than is necessary. I'm suffering agonies, and not fit to be left
alone."

Miss Morrison promised to return as expeditiously as possible, and then
forthwith led the way to the room in question.

"This is it, Mr. Headland," she said as she opened the door and ushered
Cleek in. "Everything is just exactly as it was when George left it. I
couldn't bring myself to touch a thing until after a detective had seen
it. Father said it was silly and sentimental of me to go on sleeping in
the little box of a hall bedroom when I could be so much more
comfortable if I returned to my own. But I couldn't. I felt that I might
possibly be unconsciously destroying something in the shape of a clue if
I moved a solitary object; and so---- Look! there is the drawn blind
just as he left it; there his portmanteau on that chair by the bedside,
and there----" Her voice sank to a sort of awed whisper, her shaking
finger extended in the direction of a blue semicircle in the middle of
the floor. "There is the belt! He had it round his waist when he crossed
this threshold that night. It was lying there just as you see it when
the servant brought up his tea and his shaving water the next morning,
and found the room empty and the bed undisturbed."

Cleek walked forward and picked up the belt.

"Humph! Unfastened!" he said as he took it up; and Miss Morrison,
closing the door, went below and left them. "Our wonderful wizard does
not seem to have mastered the simple matter of making a man vanish out
of the thing without first unfastening the buckle, it appears. I should
have thought he could have managed that, shouldn't you, Mr. Narkom, if
he could have managed the business of making him melt into thin air?
Hurr-r-r!" reflectively, as he turned the belt over and examined it.
"Not see