For a second Cleek paused, then switching on his heel, turned and walked back, past the watcher once more, and into Scotland Yard. That the man outside was waiting for someone to come out was obvious, but for whom? Cleek gave vent to a little laugh. "A dollar to a ducat but whom he waits for is Lieutenant Deland," he said to himself, "and he shall have his wish."
He dashed lightly up the stairs again to Mr. Narkom's room and locked the door behind him.
"You never mean to let him see you!" said the Superintendent blankly when Cleek had related his story.
"That's just what I do mean. Give me time to make the change. That man saw Lieutenant Deland go in, and he shall see Lieutenant Deland come out. You can follow with the limousine if you like."
A minute later he sallied forth, and the little one-sided smile looped up his face as he saw the watcher detach himself from the shadowing wall and follow in his wake, unconscious, however, that he, too, was being shadowed in his turn by Mr. Narkom in the car. It was not until they emerged upon the open embankment that Cleek turned to see his pursuer. To his supreme astonishment, the man had disappeared!
Cleek laughed to himself as he strode onward toward Mr. Narkom and the limousine which had slowed down some distance ahead. There was certainly something up, but what that something might be he was not so sure.
"Mr. Narkom," he said, as he threw open the door of the car and climbed in beside the Superintendent, "the plot thickens. That man was the butler at Cheyne Court."
Cleek, accompanied by the faithful Dollops, did go down to Hampton that very day, and put up as arranged at the Hampton Arms. He travelled as Mr. George Headland, a commercial traveller for beer, from London, with an inveterate taste for gossip. He speedily learned that since the return of Lady Margaret to Cheyne Court the house had been shut up "worse than ever," for hardly anybody had seen Miss Cheyne, and no one would go near the estate because of the noise.
"A queer moaning noise, sir. It fair beats me to describe it, but it just lifts the 'air off yer 'ead. You go down the lane past the gates, one dark night, and 'ear that sound. I'll wager yer'd make for the railway station as fast as yer legs could carry yer."