suppose, in that case, that you have
taken out one on your own life?"

"Yes--rather! And a whacking big one, too."

"And Lady Wilding is, of course, the beneficiary?"

"Certainly. There are no children, you know. As a matter of fact, we
have been married only seven months. Before the date of my wedding the
policy was in my Uncle Ambrose's, the Rev. Mr. Smeer's, favour."

"Ah, I see!" said Cleek reflectively. Then fell to thinking deeply over
the subject, and was still thinking of it when the motor whizzed into
the stableyard at Wilding Hall and brought him into contact for the
first time with the trainer, Logan. He didn't much fancy Logan at first
blush, and Logan didn't fancy him at all at any time.

"Hur!" he said disgustedly, in a stage aside to his master as Cleek
stood on the threshold of the stable, with his head thrown back and his
chin at an angle, sniffing the air somewhat after the manner of a
bird-dog. "Hur! If un's the best Scotland Yard could let out to ye, sir,
a half-baked old softy like that, the rest of 'em must be a blessed poor
lot, Ah'm thinkin'. What's un doin' now, the noodle?--snuffin' the air
like he did not understand the smell of it! He'd not be expectin' a
stable to be scented with eau de cologne, would he? What's un name,
sir?"

"Cleek."

"Hur! Sounds like a golf-stick an' Ah've no doubt he's got a head like
one: main thick and with a twist in un. I dunna like 'tecs, Sir Henry,
and I dunna like this one especial. Who's to tell as he aren't in with
they devils as is after Black Riot? Naw! I dunna like him at all."

Meantime, serenely unconscious of the displeasure he had excited in
Logan's breast, Cleek went on sniffing the air and "poking about," as he
phrased it, in all corners of the stable; and when, a moment later, Sir
Henry went in and joined him, he was standing before the door of the
steel room examining the curving scratch of which the baronet had
spoken.

"What do you make of it, Mr. Cleek?"

"Not much in the way of a clue, Sir Henry, a clue to any possible
intruder, I mean. If your artistic soul hadn't rebelled against bare
steel, which would, of course, have soon rusted in this
ammonia-impregnated atmosphere, and led you to put a coat of paint over
the metal, there would have been no mark at all, the thing is so slight.
I am of the opinion that Tolliver himself caused it. In short, that it
was made by either a pin or a cuff button in his wristband when he was
attacked