Cleek made no reply. He sat for a minute pinching his chin and staring at the carpet, then he got up suddenly and faced round in the direction of the little group at the far end of the room. "That's all for the present," he said. "Mr. Narkom, Mr. Nippers--get a light of some sort, please, and let's go out and have a look at those footprints." CHAPTER IX The suggestion was acted upon immediately--even Mrs. Armroyd joining in the descent upon the portable lamps and filing out with the rest into the gloom and loneliness of the grounds; and Miss Renfrew, finding that she was likely to be left alone in this house of horrors, rose quickly and hurried out with them. One step beyond the threshold brought them within sight of the famous Round House. Bulked against the pale silver of the moonlit sky, there it stood--a grim, unlovely thing of stone and steel with a trampled flower bed encircling the base of it, and a man on guard--Constable Gorham. "Lummy! I'd clean forgot _him_!" exclaimed Mr. Nippers as he caught sight of him. "And theer un be keepin' guard, like I told un, out here in the grounds whiles weem ben talkin' comfortable inside. 'E do be a chap for doin' as heem tole, that Gorham--indeed, yes!" Nobody replied to him. All were busily engaged in following the lead of Scotland Yard, as represented by Cleek and Superintendent Narkom, and bearing down on that huge stone tube within whose circular walls a dead man sat alone. "Dreary post this, Constable," said Cleek, coming abreast of the silent guard. "Yes, sir, very. But dooty's dooty--and there you be!" replied Gorham, touching his helmet with his finger; then, as the light from the lamps fell full upon Cleek's face and let him see that it was no face he had ever seen in this district before, his eyes widened with a puzzled stare which never quite left them even when the entire group had passed on and turned the curve of the Round House wall. And beyond that curve Cleek came to a sudden halt. Here, a curtainless window cut a square of light in the wall's dark face and struck a glare on the trunk and the boughs of a lime tree directly opposite, and under that window a trampled flower bed lay, with curious marks deep sunk in the soft, moist surface of it.