Cleek: The Man of the Forty Faces | Page 9

you'll have to tread carefully, and mind you don't fall over
anything. A good deal of my paraphernalia--bottles, retorts and the
like--is stored in the little recess at the foot of the staircase, and my
assistant is careless and leaves things lying about."
Evidently the caution was necessary, for a minute or so after they had
passed on and disappeared behind the door leading to the kitchen
stairway, Petrie and his colleagues heard a sound as of something being
overturned and smashed, and laughed softly to themselves. Evidently,
too, the danger of the furnace had been grossly exaggerated by Sir
Horace, for when, a few minutes later, the door opened and closed, and
Narkom's men, glancing toward it, saw the figure of their chief
reappear, it was plain that he was in no good temper, since his features
were knotted up into a scowl, and he swore audibly as he snapped the
shutter over the bull's-eye and handed it back to Petrie.
"Nothing worth looking into, superintendent?"
"No--not a thing!" he replied. "The silly old josser! pulling me down
there amongst the coals and rubbish for an insane idea like that! Why,
the flues wouldn't admit the passage of a child; and even then, there's a
bend--an abrupt 'elbow'--that nothing but a cat could crawl up. And
that's a man who's an authority on the human brain! I sent the old silly
back to bed by the way he came, and if--"
There he stopped, stopped short, and sucked in his breath with a sharp,
wheezing sound. For, of a sudden, a swift pattering footfall and a
glimmer of moving light had sprung into being and drawn his eyes
upward; and there, overhead, was Miss Lome coming down the stairs
from the upper floor in a state of nervous excitement, and with a
bedroom candle in her shaking hand, a loose gown flung on over her
nightdress, and her hair streaming over her shoulders in glorious
disarray.
He stood and looked at her, with ever-quickening breath, with
ever-widening eyes, as though the beauty of her had wakened some
dormant sense whose existence he had never suspected; as though, until
now, he had never known how fair it was possible for a woman to be,

how fair, how lovable, how much to be desired; and whilst he was so
looking she reached the foot of the staircase and came pantingly toward
him.
"Oh, Mr. Narkom, what was it--that noise I heard?" she said in a tone
of deepest agitation. "It sounded like a struggle--like the noise of
something breaking--and I dressed as hastily as I could and came down.
Did he come? Has he been here? Have you caught him? Oh! why don't
you answer me, instead of staring at me like this? Can't you see how
nervous, how frightened, I am? Dear Heaven! will no one tell me what
has happened?"
"Nothing has happened, miss," answered Petrie, catching her eye as she
flashed round on him. "You'd better go back to bed. Nobody's been
here but Sir Horace. The noise you heard was me a-grabbing of him,
and he and Mr. Narkom a-tumbling over something as they went down
to look at the furnace."
"Furnace? What furnace? What are you talking about?" she cried
agitatedly. "What do you mean by saying that Sir Horace came down?"
"Only what the superintendent himself will tell you, miss, if you ask
him. Sir Horace came downstairs in his pyjamas a few minutes ago to
say as he'd recollected about the flues of the furnace in the cellar being
big enough to hold a man, and then him and Mr. Narkom went below to
have a look at it."
She gave a sharp and sudden cry, and her face went as pale as a dead
face.
"Sir Horace came down?" she repeated, moving back a step and leaning
heavily against the bannister. "Sir Horace came down to look at the
furnace? We have no furnace!"
"What!"
"We have no furnace, I tell you, and Sir Horace did not come down. He
is up there still. I know--I know, I tell you--because I feared for his

safety, and when he went to his room I locked him in!"
"Superintendent!" The word was voiced by every man present, and six
pairs of eyes turned toward Narkom with a look of despairing
comprehension.
"Get to the cellar. Head the man off! It's he--the Cracksman!" he
shouted out. "Find him! Get him! Nab him, if you have to turn the
house upside down!"
They needed no second bidding, for each man grasped the situation
instantly, and in a twinkling there was a veritable pandemonium.
Shouting and scrambling like a band of madmen, they lurched to the
door, whirled it open, and went flying down the staircase to the kitchen
and