that he had seen his body fished out of the river a good ten miles away. Of course the story of the child's vanishing in the dead of the night was another piece of fiction of the same sort. Nor would it surprise me in the slightest if the man called Smale, who posed as her father, was really no less a person than Captain Paul Sandringham himself. "One thing, however, I think we can assert positively, and that is that Mrs. Mallory, the widow who set the ball rolling, was no other than Miss Emily Overton, otherwise Emily Costivan, and that the person who figured as her sister is the woman who passed as her mother." "Mrs. Costivan?" "Yes. I think we shall find that she and her husband were admitted into the game simply because they had at the time a nephew who was in the last stages of consumption. Of course the story about the gypsy who was beating him and who told the curse that would follow if he were buried here was made from whole cloth. The youth was simply carried into the house in the night, and Doctor Forsyth was right in the matter of his not having been able to lift a hand for days before he was called in to him. Since then it would appear that Mrs. Costivan had directed her energies toward washing the clay-stained overalls of one and the other of the 'tunnellers' when her husband carried them to her--for I dare say that every one of them--Carstairs, Overton, Costivan, all of them, took a hand in it at times; and if it hadn't been for poor Tom Davis, they might have carried it through successfully, after all. Which shows again that 'there's many a slip----!'" And so ended the case of the Mysterious Light which nearly lost a duke a most valuable heritage and to which only Cleek could find the solution. CHAPTER XVII THE MYSTERY OF THE "ROSE OF FIRE" Some few days later, Mr. Narkom, breathing noisily and obviously hard pressed for time, pushed open the door of Cleek's apartment on Portman Square and carefully inserted his head into the room. His face lighted up and he drew a deep sigh of relief as he caught sight of Cleek, reclining in an easy-chair and apparently day-dreaming. He glanced up as the Superintendent entered. "Well, for once you have caught me napping, Mr. Narkom," he said. "I was so deep in thought, I never heard a sound. But sit down, old friend. You look worried." "I am," admitted the Superintendent. "I was on pins and needles for fear this gorgeous day might have drawn you up the river, and I didn't dare use the public telephone." "Which tells me very plainly that you have not come directly from the Yard. So I may assume it is a case of some importance that has brought you here in post haste," said Cleek. "It is indeed," said Narkom, "and it is a case connected with jewels. "You remember that young American chap I pointed out in a motor last week--the fellow who came over about the Panama Canal, intending to go back, but wound up by getting engaged to an English girl and settling down here...?"