CHAPTER XXIII
It was a full half hour later, and Sir Mawson and Lady Leake and Mr.Maverick Narkom were in the throes of the most maddening suspense,when the door of the music room flashed open and flashed shut again,and Cleek stood before them once more--quite alone still, but withthat curious crooked smile which to Narkom stood for so much, loopingup the corner of his mouth and mutely foreshadowing the riddle'sspectacular end.
"Cleek, dear chap!" The superintendent's voice was sharp and thinwith excitement. "You've found out something, then?"
"I hope, Mr. Narkom, I have found out everything," he replied witha marked emphasis on the word hope. "But as we are told when in doubtor in difficulty to 'look above' for a way out, permit me to followthat advice before proceeding any further with the subject."
Here he stepped to the centre of the room, twitched back his head,and, with chin upslanted and eyes directed toward the ceiling, movedslowly round in a narrow circle for a moment or two.
But of a sudden he came to a sharp standstill, rapped out a short,queer little laugh, and, altering these mysterious tactics, lookeddown and across the room at Sir Mawson Leake.
"I think the Ranee did not look to the security of those slim goldlinks a day too soon, Sir Mawson," he said. "It is too much to aska man to risk his whole fortune on the tenacity of a bit of age-wornwire as you have done, and if I were in your shoes I'd tell theold girl's _major domo_ when he comes for the necklace, to get itrepaired somewhere else--and be dashed to him."
"Good! Wouldn't I, in a twinkling, if I could only lay hands on thewretched thing again. But I haven't it, as you know."
"Quite true. But you are going to have it--presently. I know whereit is!"
"Mr. Cleek!"
"Gently, gently, my friends. Don't go quite off your heads withexcitement. I repeat, I know where it is. I have found it and----Mr.Narkom! Look sharp! A chair for Lady Leake--she's tottering. Steady,steady, your ladyship; it will only complicate matters to lose agrip on yourself now; and you have kept up so brave a front allthrough, it would be a pity to break down at the end."
"I am not breaking down. I am quite all right. Please go on, Mr.Cleek--please do. I can stand anything better than this. Are yousure you have found it? Are you _sure?_"
"Absolutely. I have had a nice little talk with old Jennifer, anda very satisfactory visit to Master Bevis Leake's interesting'pirates' cave' and----Gently, gently, Sir Mawson; gently, allof you. Don't jump to conclusions too quickly. No, your ladyship, Idid not find the necklace in that cave, and for the simple reasonthat it is not and never has been there--in short, neither your sonBevis nor the servant, Jennifer, has the least idea in the world_where_ it is. I have, however, and if in return for handing it overto him, Sir Mawson will give me his promise to take that boy, Henry,back and give him another chance, he shall have it in his hands tenseconds afterward."
"I promise! I promise! I promise!" broke in Sir Mawson, almostshouting in his excitement. "I give you my word, Mr. Cleek, I giveyou my solemn oath."
"Right you are," said Cleek in reply. Then he twitched forward achair, stepped on the seat of it, reached up into the midst of thechandelier's glittering cut-glass lustres, snapped something out fromtheir sparkling festoons, and added serenely, "Favour for favour:there you are, then!" as he dropped the Ladder of Light into SirMawson's hands.
And all in a moment, what with Lady Leake laughing and crying at oneand the same time, her liege lord acting pretty much as if he hadsuddenly gone off his head, and Mr. Maverick Narkom chiming in andasserting several times over that he'd be jiggered, there was thedickens and all to pay in the way of excitement.
"Up in the chandelier!" exclaimed Lady Leake when matters had settleddown a bit. "Up there, where it might have remained unnoticed formonths, so like is it to the strings of lustres. But how? But when?Oh, Mr. Cleek, who in the world put it there? And why?"
"Jennifer," he made answer. "No, not for any evil purpose, yourladyship. He doesn't know even yet that it was there, or that heever in all his life held a thing so valuable in his hands. All thathe does know in connection with it is that while he was cleaningthose lustres out there in the hallway yesterday afternoon betweenfour and five o'clock your son Bevis, out on one of his 'treasureraids,' paid him a visit, and that long after, when the old fellowcame to replace the lustres on the chandelier, he discovered thatone string was missing.
"'I knowed the precious little rascal had took it, sir, of course,'was the way he put it in explaining the matter to me; 'and I feltsure I'd be certain to find it in his pirates' cave. But Lord blessyou, it turned out as he hadn't took it there at all, as I foundout a goodish bit afterward, when her ladyship comes down to thelanding at the top of the first flight of stairs, calls me up togive me the lint for Miss Eastman, and then gives a jump and a cry,like she'd just recollected something, and runs back upstairs asfast as she could fly. For when I looks down, there was the missingstring of lustres lying on the landing right where her ladyship hadbeen standing, and where he, little rascal, had went and hid itfrom me. So I picks it up and puts it back in its place on thechandelier just as soon as I'd taken the lint to Miss Eastman likeher ladyship told me.'
"In that, Lady Leake, lies the whole story of how it came to bewhere you saw me find it. Jennifer is still under the impressionthat what he picked up on that landing was nothing more than thestring of twelve cut-glass lustres joined together by links of brasswire which is at this moment hanging among the 'treasures' in yourlittle son's pirates' cave."
"On the landing? Lying on the landing, do you say, Mr. Cleek?"exclaimed her ladyship. "But heavens above, how could the necklaceever have got there? Nobody could by any possibility have entered theboudoir after I left it to run down to the landing with the lint.You saw for yourself how utterly impossible such a thing as thatwould be."
"To be sure," he admitted. "It was the absolute certainty thatnobody in the world could have actually forced the key to thesolution upon me. Since it was possible for only one solitary personto have entered and left that room since Sir Mawson placed thenecklace in your charge, clearly then that person was the one whocarried it out. Therefore, there was but one conclusion, namely, thatwhen your ladyship left that room the Ladder of Light left itwith you: on your person, and----Gently, gently, Lady Leake; don'tget excited, I beg. I shall be able in a moment to convince youthat my reasoning upon that point was quite sound, and to back itup with actual proof.
"If you will examine the necklace, Sir Mawson, you will see thatit has not come through this adventure uninjured; in short, thatone of the two sections of its clasp is missing, and the link thatonce secured that section to the string of diamonds has parted inthe middle. Perhaps a good deal which may have seemed to you sheermadness up to this point will be clearly explained when I tell youthat when I lifted Lady Leake's negligee from that chair a whileago I found this thing clinging to the lace of the right sleeve."
"Good heavens above! Look, Ada, look! The missing section of theclasp."
"Exactly," concurred Cleek. "And when you think of where I found it Ifancy it will not be very difficult to reason out how the necklacecame to be where Jennifer picked it up. On your own evidence,Lady Leake, you hastily laid it down on your dressing-table, whenthe sight of the lint bandage recalled to your mind your promise toMiss Eastman, and from that moment it was never seen again. Thenatural inference then is so clear I think there can hardly be adoubt that when you reached over to pick up that bandage the laceof your sleeve caught on the clasp, became entangled, and that whenyou left the room you carried the Ladder of Light with you. Thegreat weight of the necklace swinging free as you ran down thestaircase would naturally tell upon that weak link, and no doubtwhen you leaned over the banister at the landing to call Jennifer,that was, so to speak, the last straw. The weak link snapped, thenecklace dropped away, and the thick carpet entirely muffled thesound of its fall. As for the rest----"
The loud jangling of the door bell cut in upon his words. He pulledout his watch a
nd looked at it.
"That will be the Ranee's _major domo_, I fancy, Sir Mawson," heobserved, "and with your kind permission Mr. Narkom and I will begoing. We have, as I have already told you, a little matter ofimportance still to attend to in the interest of the Yard, andalthough I haven't the slightest idea we shall be able to carry itto a satisfactory conclusion for a very long time--if ever--we hadbetter be about it. Pardon? Reward, your ladyship? Oh, but I've hadthat: Sir Mawson has given me his promise to let that bonny boy haveanother chance. That was all I asked, remember. There's good stuffin him, but he stands at the crossroads, and face to face with oneof life's great crises. Now is the time when he needs a friend.Now is the time for his father to _be_ a father; and opportunitycounts for so much in the devil's gamble for souls. Get to him,daddy--get to him and stand by him--and you'll have given me thefinest reward in the world."
And here, making his adieus to Lady Leake, whose wet eyes followedhim with something of reverence in them, and shaking heartily thehand Sir Mawson held out, he linked arms with Narkom, and togetherthey passed out, leaving a great peace and a great joy behind them.
"Gad, what an amazing beggar you are!" declared the superintendent,breaking silence suddenly as soon as they were at a safe distancefrom the house. "You'll end your days in the workhouse, you know,if you continue this sort of tactics. Fancy chucking up a rewardfor the sake of a chap you never saw before, and who treated youlike a mere nobody. Why, man alive, you could have had almost anyreward--a thousand pounds if you'd asked it--for finding a pricelessthing like that."
"I fancy I've helped to find something that is more priceless still,my friend, and it's cheap at the price."
"But a thousand pounds, Cleek! a thousand pounds! God's truth, man,think what you could do with all that money--think what you couldbuy!"
"To be sure; but think what you _can't_! Not one day of lostinnocence, not one hour of spoilt youth! It isn't because they have anatural tendency toward evil that _all_ men go wrong. It is notwhat they possess but what they lack that's at the bottom of thedownfall of four fifths of them. Given such ingredients as a youngchap suffering under a sense of personal injury, a feeling thatthe world's against him, that he has neither a home nor a friend tostand by him in his hour of need, and the devil will whip up themixture and manufacture a criminal in less than no time. It iseasier to save him while he's worth the saving than it is to pullhim up after he has gone down the line, Mr. Narkom, and if byrefusing to accept so many pounds, shillings, and pence, a man can dothe devil out of a favourable opportunity----Oh, well, let it go atthat. Come on, please. We are still as far as ever from the 'game' weset out to bag, my friend; and as this district seems to be asunpromising in that respect as all the others--where next?"