"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," he said, smoothly, "but now I think I can solve the riddle of the time-lock. Mr. Desmond, you saw me set that safe yourself, to open at what hour?" "One o'clock," was the prompt reply. "Quite so, and therefore it is impossible to open it until that hour----" But he was interrupted here by Mr. Narkom, who came tumbling into the room, his face alight with eagerness. "Ah," interposed Cleek, before the little man could speak. "It worked all right, eh?" "I should just think so," was the brisk reply. "I left the----" "That's all right then," interrupted Cleek, with a twitch of his eyebrow. "I was just asking Mr. Desmond to test his safe. Have you your key? If so, try it, please." Mr. Desmond stepped forward and inserted it. To his surprise, it turned in the lock and the door swung slowly open. "Good heavens!" he cried. "What does it mean? That thing should not have moved!" He looked at the dial, which stood for one o'clock, rigid, inscrutable. Then he looked from Cleek to Lady Beryl, who was leaning against the table, overcome with emotion. "I won't have it," she burst out. "It was not Elton. I swear it wasn't!" "Have no fear," Cleek said, quietly. "Elton Carlyle was as true as steel, he never tampered with the lock. Perhaps Mr. Carlyle would prefer to tell us himself, Lady Desmond." Before any one could so much as speak a word the amazing intimation had come true. With disordered dress and white, haggard face, the figure of Elton Carlyle himself stood in the doorway. A shriek burst from Estelle Jardine's white lips, and she turned to fly to him. "Oh, no, no, my girl; you don't make another attempt," snapped out Cleek. "You thought you were safe this time, didn't you, and that the dead tell no tales, eh?" Speaking, he had sprung with a sharp movement, and immediately there was a scream, a struggle, and a click of clamping handcuffs. "Well, my sweet-voiced little traitress, so I've got one more of your precious gang, have I?" Cleek snapped out, triumphantly, staring down into her upturned face. "I suppose your precious brother, Gustave Borelle, is at the bottom of it. Oh, yes, you may shriek, you may scream, but I hadn't forgotten Nita Borelle any more than her brother had forgotten Cleek!" "Cleek!" broke out Carlyle in a weak voice. And "Cleek!" chimed in Lady Beryl and her husband in one breath. "Yes, just Cleek, Mr. Desmond. Mr. Carlyle, you must keep quiet and rest. I know the effects of that drug this she-devil used on you, and the reaction of the reviving antidote that I sent Mr. Narkom upstairs with. You must retire to your bed for a few days. I take it that you were busy with the accounts when that hypocrite"--he flashed a glance of contempt at the huddled figure of Nita Borelle--"came into the room."