"Neither, b'gad!" asseverated Narkom, emphatically. "I'll stake my reputation upon the sanity and the truthfulness of every mother's son and every father's daughter of the lot of them! The porter who says he showed the boy into the glass-room I've known since he was a nipper--his dad was one of my Yard men years ago--and the two people who were looking into the place at the time, and who swear that it was absolutely empty and that the lad _never_ came into it----Look here, old chap, I'll let you into a bit of family history. One of them is a distant relative of Mrs. Narkom--an aunt, in fact, who's rather down in the world, and does a bit of dressmaking for a living. The other is her daughter. They are two of the straightest-living, most upright, and truly religious women that ever drew the breath of life, and they wouldn't, either of 'em, tell a lie for all the money in England. There's where the puzzle of the thing comes in. You simply have _got_ to believe that that porter showed the boy into that room, for there are reliable witnesses to prove it, and he has no living reason to lie about it; and you have _got_ to believe that those two women are speaking the truth when they say that it was empty at that period and remained empty for an hour afterward. Also--if you will take on the case and solve at the same time the mystery attending the disappearance of both father and son--you will have to find out where that boy went to, through whose agency he vanished, and for what cause." "A tall order that," said Cleek with one of his curious, one-sided smiles. "Still, of course, mysteries which are humanly possible of creation are humanly possible of solution, and--there you are. Who is the client? Miss Larue? If so, how is one to be sure that she will not again call a halt, and spoil a good 'case' before it is halfway to completion?" "For the best of reasons," replied Narkom earnestly. "Hers is not the sole 'say' in the present case. Added to which, she is now convinced that her suspicions in the former one were not well grounded. The truth has come out at last, Cleek. She stopped all further inquiry into the mysterious disappearance of her brother because she had reason to believe that the elder Mr. Trent had killed him for the purpose of getting possession of those jewels to tide over a financial crisis consequent upon the failure of some heavy speculations upon the stock market. She held her peace and closed up the case because she loves and is engaged to be married to his son, and she would have lost everything in the world sooner than hurt his belief in the honour and integrity of his father." "What a ripping girl! Gad, but there _are_ some splendid women in the world, are there not, Mr. Narkom? What has happened, dear friend, to change her opinion regarding the elder Mr. Trent's guilt?"