and stood
staring reflectively at the door communicating with Kazmah's inner room.
Then walking along the corridor to where the man stood on, the landing,
he went in again to the mysterious apartments, but only to get his cane
and his overall and to turn out the lights.

Five minutes later he was ringing the late Sir Lucien's door-bell.

A constable admitted him, and he walked straight through into the study
where Coombes, looking very tired but smiling undauntedly, sat at a
littered table studying piles of documents.

"Anything to report?" rapped Kerry.

"The man, Mareno, has gone to bed, and the expert from the Home office
has been--"

Inspector Kerry brought his cane down with a crash upon the table,
whereat Coombes started nervously.

"So that's it!" he shouted furiously, "an 'expert from the Home office'!
So that's the dark horse in the fur coat. Coombes! I'm fed up to the
back teeth with this gun from the Home office! If I'm not to have entire
charge of the case I'll throw it up. I'll stand for no blasted overseer
checking my work! Wait till I see the Assistant Commissioner! What the
devil has the job to do with the Home office!"

"Can't say," murmured Coombes. "But he's evidently a big bug from the
way Whiteleaf treated him. He instructed me to stay in the kitchen and
keep an eye on Mareno while he prowled about in here."

"Instructed you!" cried Kerry, his teeth gleaming and his steel-blue
eyes creating upon Coombes' mind an impression that they were emitting
sparks. "Instructed you! I'll ask you a question, Detective-Sergeant
Coombes: Who is in charge of this case?"

"Well, I thought you were."

"You thought I was?"

"Well, you are."

"I am? Very well--you were saying--?"

"I was saying that I went into the kitchen--"

"Before that! Something about 'instructed.'"

Poor Coombes smiled pathetically.

"Look here," he said, bravely meeting the ferocious glare of his
superior, "as man to man. What could I do?"

"You could stop smiling!" snapped Kerry. "Hell!" He paced several times
up and down the room. "Go ahead, Coombes."

"Well, there's nothing much to report. I stayed in the kitchen, and the
man from the Home office was in here alone for about half an hour."

"Alone?"

"Inspector Whiteleaf stayed in the dining-room."

"Had he been 'instructed' too?"

"I expect so. I think he just came along as a sort of guide."

"Ah!" muttered Kerry savagely, "a sort of guide! Any idea what the boge