Cleek, who had been studying the man fixedly with his narrowed eyes--and remembering what had been said of Diamond Nick's skill at impersonation, the while they were crossing the lawn--here twitched his head, as if casting off a thought which annoyed him, and turned a bland look upon Lady Leake. "One last question, your ladyship," he said. "I think you said that Jennifer was cleaning the hall at the time your stepson left the house; and, as, presumably, you wouldn't overwork a crippled old chap like that, how happened it that he was still at his labours at ten minutes past seven o'clock in the evening? That's rather late to be cleaning up a hall, isn't it?" "Yes, much _too_ late," she acknowledged. "But it couldn't be helped in the present instance. The gasfitters didn't finish their work as early as we had hoped, and as he couldn't begin until they _had_ finished, he was delayed in starting." "The gasfitters, eh? Oho! So you had those chaps in the house yesterday, did you?" "Yes. There had been an unpleasant leakage of gas in both the music room and the main hall, for two or three days, and as the men had to take down the fixtures to get to the seat of the trouble, Jennifer improved the opportunity to give the chandelier and the brackets a thorough cleaning, since he couldn't of course start to clear up the mess the workmen made until after they had finished and gone. But--Mr. Cleek! _They_ couldn't have had anything to do with the affair, for they left the house at least ten minutes before the Ladder of Light came into it. So, naturally----This is the door of the music room, gentlemen. Come in, please." The invitation was accepted at once, and in another half minute Cleek and Mr. Narkom found themselves standing in a wonderful white-and-gold room, under a huge crystal chandelier of silver and cut glass, and looking out through an arched opening, hung with sulphur-coloured draperies, into a sort of baronial hall equipped with armour and tapestries, and broad enough to drive a coach through without danger to its contents. From this hall, as they discovered, when Lady Leake led them without delay toward the scene of the necklace's mysterious vanishment, a broad, short flight of richly carpeted stairs led to a square landing, and thence another and a longer flight, striking off at right angles, communicated with the passage upon which her ladyship's boudoir opened. "It was here that I stood, Mr. Cleek, when I recollected about the necklace as I called Jennifer to me," she explained, pausing on the landing at the foot of this latter flight of stairs just long enough to let him note, over the broad rail of the banister, that the great hall was clearly visible below. "He was there, just under you, drying the globes of the music-room chandelier when I called to him. Now come this way, please, and you will see how impossible it is for any one to have entered and left the boudoir during my brief absence without my seeing or hearing."