d
in the blackness of the Common; the wall door closed, the spring lock
clicked, and the sound of a man's running echoed faintly from the other
side. No time this for craft and finesse. Here was a call for action, a
demand for muscle, not brain. If that man was a member of this
household, if fleet running could do it, if any man who should be under
that roof was _not_ there----

Cleek was on his feet like a flash. He scudded down the lane openly, he
ducked into the door and vanished into the gardens without so much as a
word to Ailsa, he struck through the plantation and made a short cut for
the lawn and the front door, and with jaw squared and teeth shut, ran
and ran and ran.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE MOUSETRAP

Cleek covered the distance between the wall angle and the door of the
Grange in a fraction over a minute, and he had neither heard any one nor
seen any one on the way. He went up the steps two at a time, and,
swinging into the hallway, made hot foot for the dining-room. An inward
push on the door and all that lay beyond it was in view.

The lights were still burning, the decanter and the glasses still _en
evidence_, and, what was still more to the point, there lay Mr. Harry
Raynor with his arms sprawled out over the tablecloth and his head
between them, snoring away in a semi-drunken stupor, with his mouth wide
open and his flushed face a little less attractive in slumber than it
was in wakefulness.

Not he, then!

Cleek dashed out of the room and flew upstairs to Lord St. Ulmer's room.
No time for craft and cunning this. At whatever risk, at whatever cost,
he must assure himself of where _that_ man was at this particular
moment; and, even if he had to break down the door to get in---- The
possibility ceased to exist while it was yet taking shape in his mind.

For he had reached the second landing, had come within three feet of
Lord St. Ulmer's room, when he heard a voice from within it say, "Then
if there is nothing more, your lordship, allow me to thank your lordship
and to say good-night"--and was in time to see the door open and
Johnston, the butler, come out. More than that, to look past him and see
the figure of a man lying in bed with his back to the door, his face to
the wall, and one pajama-clad arm lying outside the bedclothing.

Not St. Ulmer either, eh? Then who the dickens----He turned and made a
bolt for the staircase again.

"Anything I can get you, Mr. Barch?" inquired Johns