On the way who should tag himself on to the procession but Endymion Leer. At this, Master Ambrose completely lost his temper. He would like to know why this double-dyed villain, this shameless Son of a Fairy, was putting his rancid nose into the private concerns of the Senate! But Master Nathaniel cried impatiently, "Oh, let him come, Ambrose, if he wants to. The more the merrier!" You can picture the consternation of Dame Marigold when, a few minutes later, her brother--with a crowd of Senators pressing up behind him--bade her, with a face of grave compassion, to bring him all the keys of the house. They proceeded to make a thorough search, ransacking every cupboard, chest and bureau. But nowhere did they find so much as an incriminating pip, so much as a stain of dubious colour. "Well," began Master Polydore, in a voice of mingled relief and disappointment, "it seems that our search has been a...." "Fruitless one, eh?" prompted Endymion Leer, rubbing his hands, and darting his bright eyes over the assembled faces. "Well, perhaps it has. Perhaps it has." They were standing in the hall, quite close to the grandfather's clock, which was ticking away, as innocent and foolish-looking as a newly-born lamb. Endymion Leer walked up to it and gazed at it quizzically, with his head on one side. Then he tapped its mahogany case--making Dame Marigold think of what the guardian at the Guildhall had said of his likeness to a woodpecker. Then he stood back a few paces and wagged his finger at it in comic admonition ("Vulgar buffoon!" said Master Ambrose quite audibly), and then the wag turned to Master Polydore and said, "Just before we go, to make quite sure, what about having a peep inside this clock?" Master Polydore had secretly sympathised with Master Ambrose's ejaculation, and thought that the Doctor, by jesting at such a time, was showing a deplorable lack of good breeding. All the same, the Law does not shrink from reducing thoroughness to absurdity, so he asked Master Nathaniel if he would kindly produce the key of the clock. He did so, and the case was opened; Dame Marigold made a grimace and held her pomander to her nose, and to the general amazement that foolish, innocent-looking grandfather's clock stood revealed as a veritable cornucopia of exotic, strangely coloured, sinister-looking fruits. Vine-like tendrils, studded with bright, menacing berries were twined round the pendulum and the chains of the two leaden weights; and at the bottom of the case stood a gourd of an unknown colour, which had been scooped hollow and filled with what looked like crimson grapes, tawny figs, raspberries of an emerald green, and fruits even stranger than these, and of colour and shape not found in any of the species of Dorimare.