"Deland, my dear chap, Deland, I beg of you!" interposed Cleek hastily, whirling about with upraised hands. "Not a soul in the place knows who I really am. Even Highland fastnesses, you know, have their leaking spots--and I'll show you one of 'em by-and-by that'll make you sit up!... But he _did_ get it, the young beggar! Well, well, well! that points nearer home, anyway, and it'll be something to go on.... What's that? A clue? Well, perhaps, and perhaps not. Anyhow, it's not clue enough at present to hang any ideas on. But the stiletto's done the thing in one instance, and the air-pistol in the other. But how?--but where?--but----" Then he whirled around suddenly and stood a moment looking at the spinning wheel as though, of a sudden, it had actually come to life of its own accord, and then darting forward scanned the spindle. "H'm. Perhaps not the stiletto--perhaps _this_, and the peasant-girl story to make a cloak of! The points are much the same--stiletto or spindle? But--which?" "What the dickens are you mumbling over?" threw in Mr. Narkom at this juncture, as Cleek stood surveying this instrument of a by-gone year, and pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger thoughtfully the while. "Spindle? You don't suppose the spindle of _that_ thing could have anything to do with it, eh?" "Stranger things have happened, my dear friend, though I'm inclined to think that in this case they have not!" responded Cleek serenely. "The spindle theory is thin--deuced thin. But it's often in the thinnest material that the thickest things are hid.... Now, if we could only find the bloodstained article with which the stiletto was wiped, we'd settle that question once and for all. I-- Gad! yes, I remember now! I'll ask her later on what they were. H'm--ah! That's possibly where it is." But Mr. Narkom's patience was running a close race with his curiosity, and both in the same direction. He gave an exasperated sigh and rubbed the top of his bald head disconsolately. "You're the most amazin' beggar," he gave out finally, in a tense voice. "Mumbling away like a lunatic, of laundry-bills and spinning wheels and 'crowns and anchors' which are 'inmates of village post-offices,' and I don't know what all! If I didn't know something about you, I'd say you'd gone suddenly balmy, and light out for little old London before you turned your hand on _me_! But you might let a chap have an inkling----" "When you've been in this house as long as I have, you'll have more than an inkling--you'll probably _know_," returned Cleek with a little laugh. "But, look here, my friend, we've got to get the body out of here--presto!--or we'll be having the ladies fainting away and upsetting the apple cart with a vengeance! They're due in here inside of a quarter of an hour, when I'm going to give a little 'turn' of the whole thing again, and see if we can't reconstruct it a bit. The constable outside will lend a hand. Here, Peters!" "Yessir?"