never heard? She--they--that is,"
stammering confusedly and colouring to the temples, "up to seven months
ago, Mr. Cleek, Lady Wilding was on the--er--music-hall stage. She and
Mr. Sharpless were known as 'Signor Morando and La Belle Creole'--they
did a living statue turn together. It was highly artistic; people raved;
I--er--fell in love with the lady and--that's all!"

But it wasn't; for Cleek, reading between the lines, saw that the mad
infatuation which had brought the lady a title and an over-generous
husband had simmered down--as such things always do sooner or later--and
that the marriage was very far from being a happy one. As a matter of
fact, he learned later that the county, to a woman, had refused to
accept Lady Wilding; that her ladyship, chafing under this ostracism,
was for having a number of her old professional friends come down to
visit her and make a time of it, and that, on Sir Henry's objecting, a
violent quarrel had ensued, and the Rev. Ambrose Smeer had come down to
the hall in the effort to make peace. And he learned something else that
night which gave him food for deep reflection: the Rev. Ambrose Smeer,
too, had been to South America, and when he met that gentleman--well, in
spite of the fact that Sir Henry thought so highly of him, and it was
known that his revival meetings had done a world of good, Cleek did not
fancy the Rev. Ambrose Smeer any more than he fancied the trainer,
Logan.

But to return to the present. By this time the late falling twilight of
May had begun to close in, and presently--as the day was now done and
the night approaching--Logan led in Black Riot from the paddock,
followed by a slim, sallow-featured, small-moustached man, bearing a
shotgun, and dressed in grey tweeds. Sir Henry, who, it was plain to
see, had a liking for the man, introduced this newcomer to Cleek as the
South American, Mr. Andrew Sharpless.

"That's the English of it, Mr. Cleek," said the latter jovially, but
with an undoubted Spanish twist to the tongue. "I wouldn't have you risk
breaking your jaw with the Brazilian original. Delighted to meet you,
sir. I hope to Heaven you will get at the bottom of this diabolical
thing. What do you think, Henry? Lambson-Bowles's jockey was over in
this neighbourhood this afternoon. Trying to see how Black Riot shapes,
of course, the bounder! Fortunately I saw him skulking along on the
other side of the hedge, and gave him two minutes in which to make
himself s