He turned away as he tossed the paper back, walked to the door, opened
it, and stepped out. The staircase down which he had run in such hot
haste at the sound of Dollops's whistle was before him. He stopped an
instant and looked up it, then nodded his head in the direction of Lord
St. Ulmer's quarters, and if he had put his thoughts into actual words,
would have said this:

"I'll know your part in it, and I'll see your face by hook or by crook
before this night is over; I promise you that, my man!" Then he turned
again, and went down the hall to the dining-room.

Harry Raynor was still there, lying with his arms sprawled out upon the
table and his head sunk between them.

Cleek stood still and looked at him. Of a certainty, the man had moved
since last he saw him; but whether that movement had been merely the
unconscious stirring of a sleeping man or the fellow had been up and
about in the meantime, it was impossible to say.

Cleek, taking no chances, closed and locked the door, and assuming once
more his "Barch" tone and manner of expression, advanced to his side,
shook him, and said:

"I say, Raynor, don't be a howling ass! Buck up and don't sleep the
whole blessed night away. I'm jolly lonesome."

Young Raynor went on snoring serenely, and neither answered nor moved.

Still Cleek was taking no chances. He repeated the operation with
greater force and louder spoken words, and finding it produced no
effect, finally shook the man so hard that his head lolled over on one
arm and let the hidden face come into sight.

The jaw hung loose, the scooped cheeks and pendulous lip gleamed pale as
ivory, and the whites of his eyes shone like narrow bands of silver
through the slits of their half-closed lids.

There was no question whatsoever regarding the man's condition.
Satisfied now, Cleek felt his pulse, pushed up one of his eyelids and
examined the eye itself. The pupil was largely dilated, the white
suffused considerably, and both were slightly filmed.

"Hum-m-m!" he breathed conclusively, then turned from the man and looked
at the decanters and glasses on the littered table. "Port, Brandy,
Benedictine, Scotch. To be sure! to be sure! Who is to know the taste of
a mere guest in the matter of his after-dinner drink? So, if it is put
in _all_----" He took up the decanters one by one, sampled their
contents in turn, and smiled one of his queer crooked smiles when he set
the last one down.

"Clever, very clever,