what we've heard?"

"No, I don't. I think it's something confoundedly unnatural, and that
that poor old chap is being secretly and barbarously murdered. I think
that--and--I think, too--" His voice trailed off. He stood silent and
preoccupied for a moment, and then, putting his thoughts into words,
without addressing them to anybody: "Ayupee!" he said reflectively;
"Pohon-Upas, Antjar, Galanga root, Ginger and Black Pepper--that's the
Javanese method of procedure, I believe. Ayupee!--yes, assuredly,
Ayupee!"

"What the dickens are you talking about, Cleek? And what does all that
gibberish and that word 'Ayupee' mean?"

"Nothing--nothing. At least, just yet. I say, put on your hat, and let's
go for a pull on the river, Mr. Narkom. I've had enough of mysteries for
to-day and am spoiling for another hour in a boat."

Then he screwed round on his heel and walked out into the brilliant
summer sunshine.

CHAPTER IV

Promptly, at the hour appointed, "Mr. Jim Rickaby" and his black servant
arrived at Laburnam Villa; and certainly the former had no cause to
complain of the welcome he received at the hands of his beautiful young
hostess.

He found her not only an extremely lovely woman to the eye, but one
whose gentle, caressing ways, whose soft voice and simple girlish charm
were altogether fascinating, and, judging from outward appearances, from
the tender solicitude for her elderly husband's comfort and well-being,
from the look in her eyes when she spoke to him, the gentleness of her
hand when she touched him, one would have said that she really and truly
loved him, and that it needed no lure of gold to draw this particular
May to the arms of this one December.

He found Captain Travers a laughing, rollicking, fun-loving type of
man--at least, to all outward appearances--who seemed to delight in
sports and games and to have an almost childish love of card tricks and
that species of entertainment which is known as parlour magic. He found
the three other members of the little house-party--to wit: Mrs.
Somerby-Miles, Lieutenant Forshay, and Mr. Robert Murdock--respectively,
a silly, flirtatious, little gadfly of a widow; a callow, love-struck,
lap-dog, young army officer, with a budding moustache and a full-blown
idea of his own importance; and a dour Scotchman of middle age, with a
passion for chess, a glowering scorn of frivolities, and a deep and
abiding conviction that Scotland was the only country in the w