y
friend, a few little questions in private, and in the interests of a
gentleman called Jack Ketch!"

This unexpected outburst produced something like a panic. Miss Comstock,
hearing the words, cried out, put both hands to her temples, as though
her head were reeling; old Mr. Harmstead straightened suddenly and flung
a look of blank amazement across the room; and the Captain, twitching
away from the man who gripped him, went first deathly white and then red
as any beet.

"Good God!" he gulped. "You--I--Look here, I say now, what does this
mean? What the dickens are you talking about?"

"Bluff, Captain! Simply 'bluff'!" responded Cleek serenely. "And as I
said before, it's a clever little game. Stand where you are--keep an eye
on him, Mr. Narkom. What I've got to say to you, my friend, we'll talk
about in private, and after I have assisted Miss Comstock to lead her
uncle out of the room."

With that he swung away from the Captain's side and went over to that of
the old man.

"Come, Mr. Harmstead, let me help you to rise," he began; then stopped
as the old man put up a knotted and twisted hand in supplication and
protested agitatedly: "But--but, sir, I do not want to go. Good Heaven!
What can you be hinting against that poor, dear boy? Surely you do not
mean--you cannot mean--"

"That the little game of 'Bluff' has worked, Dr. Finch, and you'll never
draw a revolver on me," rapped in Cleek, giving him a backward push that
carried him to the floor, and in the twinkling of an eye he had pounced
upon him like a cat and was saying, as he snapped the handcuffs upon his
wrists: "Got you, you brute-beast; got you tight and fast! Do you
remember Hamilton, the medical student, in New Zealand, eight years ago?
Do you? Well, that's the man you're dealing with now!"

The man, struggling and kicking, biting and clawing like any other
cornered wild cat, flung out a cry of utter despair at this, and
collapsed suddenly; and in the winking of an eye Cleek's hands had
flashed into the two pockets of the dressing-gown the fellow was
wearing, and flashed out again with a revolver in one and a shining
nickel thing in the other.

"Got your 'bark,' doctor, and got your 'bite' as well!" he said, as he
rose to his feet. "You'd have put a bullet through me at the first word,
wouldn't you, but for that little 'bluff' of suspecting and arresting
another man? Captain, look to Miss Comstock--I think she has fainted.
You wanted the murderer