"Don't mind if I do," returned the Superintendent off-handedly, "seeing that there is nothing more to be discovered to-night. My man's in charge, so we might go over to the Three Fishers and have a quiet smoke in your rooms. That is, if you'd care about it?" "Love to, my dear chap, love to. Through this door, eh, Jarvis? Nice snug place you've got here, I must say. Family do you well, I suppose?" "Yessir," Jarvis's voice bordered upon the confidential. "Tight-fisted where the money is, sir, but--that's Scotch, you know." "And you're London, eh?--and naturally generous! I understand. Well, here's something to buy yourself a drink with." And Cleek dropped half-a-crown into the butler's hands. As the two men disappeared through the kitchen door and out into the courtyard, the highly elated Jarvis turned to his fellow servants with a genuine sigh of admiration. "Amachoor detective or not," he apostrophized the absent gentleman, "an' queer in the top story though 'e may be, that's what I calls a right-down Lunnon gentleman!" CHAPTER XXII DAMNING EVIDENCE They found Dollops waiting in the little squared-in courtyard which led down to the dungeons, and in a state bordering upon hysteria from the excitement of all those exciting things which had just come to pass. He blurted out his story of Jarvis's practical joke and its ultimate consequences in a helter-skelter fashion, anxious to get on to this new development, and except for a "By James!" from Mr. Narkom and a nod of the head from Cleek, pursued his course without interruption. "And when we'd walked a mile or so over them 'ills and dahn inter the dales, Minnie ups and says ter me, 'Come an' 'ave a drink, Ginger-snap!' And er course I was nuffin' loaf, as they s'y (though what bread 'as to do with it I niver could tell). So we comes upon a pub in a little bit of a shanty built of timber dahn in the nest of the 'ills, and she tykes me by the arm and pulls me inter it." "And what did you find there, Dollops?" put in Cleek, with a smile for the lad's poetical expression. "A bit of a bar full of Scotties wot looked as though they'd come 'ome from a funeril, from the h'expression of their fyces," he returned emphatically. "Them Scotties do take their pleasure sadly, not 'arf! Not a blinkin' one of 'em got a bit er jollyin' left in 'em. ''Ello, Minnie-gairl,' they s'ys to 'er wen we come in, 'who's the noo mon ye ken?'--talkin' in their silly langwidge wot an Englishman can't unnerstand. 'Pal o' mine,' s'ys Minnie, pert-like, 'come ter visit fer a little time. Gen'leman's st'yin' at the Castle.' "'Where that there wee beetie o' crrime has taken place?' puts in a sandy-'eaded feller wiv beetling brows an' a complexion like a bit er red granite. 'Yes,' says Minnie. 'Then better give 'im a wee drappier ter warrm 'is freetened hearrt!'" Dollops paused a moment, and Cleek threw back his head and gave vent to a smothered laugh.