"Hur!" he said disgustedly, in a stage aside to his master, as Cleek stood on the threshold of the stable, with his head thrown back and his chin at an angle, sniffing the air somewhat after the manner of a bird-dog. "Hur! If un's the best Scotland Yard could let out to ye, sir--a half-baked old softy like that!--the rest of 'em must be a blessed poor lot, Ah'm thinkin'. What's un doin' now, the noodle?--snuffin' the air like he did not understand the smell of it! He'd not be expectin' a stable to be scented with eau de cologne, would he? What's un name, sir?" "Cleek." "Hur! Sounds like a golf-stick--an' Ah've no doubt he's got a head like one: main thick and with a twist in un. I dunna like 'tecs, Sir Henry, and I dunna like this one especial. Who's to tell as he aren't in with they devils as is after Black Riot? Naw! I dunna like him at all." Meantime, serenely unconscious of the displeasure he had excited in Logan's breast, Cleek went on sniffing the air and "poking about," as he phrased it, in all corners of the stable; and when, a moment later, Sir Henry went in and joined him, he was standing before the door of the steel room examining the curving scratch of which the baronet had spoken. "What do you make of it, Mr. Cleek?" "Not much in the way of a clue, Sir Henry--a clue to any possible intruder, I mean. If your artistic soul hadn't rebelled against bare steel--which would, of course, have soon rusted in this ammonia-impregnated atmosphere--and led you to put a coat of paint over the metal, there would have been no mark at all, the thing is so slight. I am of the opinion that Tolliver himself caused it. In short, that it was made by either a pin or a cuff button in his wristband when he was attacked and fell. But, enlighten me upon a puzzling point, Sir Henry: What do you use coriander and oil of sassafras for in a stable?" "Coriander? Oil of sassafras? I don't know what the dickens they are. Have you found such things here?" "No; simply smelt them. The combination is not usual--indeed, I know of but one race in the world who make any use of it, and they merely for a purpose which, of course, could not possibly exist here, unless--" He allowed the rest of the sentence to go by default, and turning, looked all round the place. For the first time he seemed to notice something unusual for the equipment of a stable, and regarded it with silent interest. It was nothing more nor less than a box, covered with sheets of virgin cork, and standing on the floor just under one of the windows, where the light and air could get to a weird-looking, rubbery-leaved, orchid-like plant, covered with ligulated scarlet blossoms which grew within it. "Sir Henry," he said, after a moment, "may I ask how long it is since you were in South America?" "I? Never was there in my life, Mr. Cleek--never." "Ah! Then who connected with the hall has been?"