But “this human trombone” was not minded that they should; and so it fell out that, when Lieutenant Forshay led Mrs. Somerby-Miles from the room, and young Bawdrey and Captain Travers carried the stricken man up the stairs to his own bed-chamber, his wife flying in advance to see that everything was prepared for him, Cleek, standing all alone beside the shattered cabinet, could hear Mr. Robert Murdock’s dismal croakings rumbling steadily out as he mounted the staircase with the others.

For a moment after the closing door of a room overhead had shut them from his ears, he stood there, with puckered brows and pursed-up lips, drumming with his finger-tips a faint tattoo upon the framework of the shattered lid; then he walked over to the skeleton case, and silently regarded the gruesome thing within.

“Nine fingers,” he muttered sententiously, “and the ninth curves inward to the palm!” He stepped round and viewed the case from all points—­both sides, the front, and even the narrow space made at the back by the angle of the corner where it stood.  And after this he walked to the other end of the room, took the key from the lock, slipped it in his pocket, and went out, closing the door behind him, that none might remember it had not been locked when the master of the place was carried above.

It was, perhaps, twenty minutes later that young Bawdrey came down and found him all alone in the smoking-room, bending over the table whereon the butler had set the salver containing the whiskey decanter, the soda siphon, and the glasses that were always laid out there, that the gentlemen might help themselves to the regulation “night-cap” before going to bed.

“I’ve slipped away to have a word in private with you, Headland,” he said, in an agitated voice, as he came in.  “Oh, what consummate actors they are, those two.  You’d think her heart was breaking, wouldn’t you?  You’d think—­Hullo!  I say!  What on earth are you doing?” For, as he came nearer, he could see that Cleek had removed the glass stopper of the decanter, and was tapping with his finger-tips a little funnel of white paper, the narrow end of which he had thrust into the neck of the bottle.

“Just adding a harmless little sleeping-draught to the nightly beverage,” said Cleek, in reply, as he screwed up the paper funnel and put it in his pocket.  “A good sound sleep is an excellent thing, my dear fellow, and I mean to make sure that the gentlemen of this house-party have it—­one gentleman in particular:  Captain Travers.”

“Yes; but—­I say!  What about me, old chap?  I don’t want to be drugged, and you know I have to show them the courtesy of taking a ‘night-cap’ with them.”

“Precisely.  That’s where you can help me out.  If any of them remark anything about the whiskey having a peculiar taste, you must stoutly assert that you don’t notice; and, as they’ve seen you drinking from the same decanter—­why, there you are.  Don’t worry over it.  It’s a very, very harmless draught; you won’t even have a headache from it.  Listen here, Bawdrey.  Somebody is poisoning your father.”