“Yes, I did,” replied Sir Henry.  “As a matter of fact, I take out a similar policy—­payable to the widow—­for every married man I employ in connection with my racing stud.”

“May I ask why?”

“Well, for one thing, they usually are too poor and have too many children to support to be able to take it out for themselves, and exercising racers has a good many risks.  Then, for another thing, I’m a firm believer in the policy of life assurance.  It’s just so much money laid up in safety, and one never knows what may happen.”

“Then it is fair,” said Cleek, “to suppose, in that case, that you have taken out one on your own life?”

“Yes—­rather!  And a whacking big one, too.”

“And Lady Wilding is, of course, the beneficiary?”

“Certainly.  There are no children, you know.  As a matter of fact, we have been married only seven months.  Before the date of my wedding the policy was in my uncle Ambrose’s—­the Rev. Mr. Smeer’s—­favour.”

“Ah, I see!” said Cleek reflectively.  Then fell to thinking deeply over the subject, and was still thinking of it when the motor whizzed into the stable yard at Wilding Hall and brought him into contact for the first time with the trainer, Logan.  He didn’t much fancy Logan at first blush—­and Logan didn’t fancy him at all at any time.

“Hur!” he said disgustedly, in a stage aside to his master, as Cleek stood on the threshold of the stable, with his head thrown back and his chin at an angle, sniffing the air somewhat after the manner of a bird-dog.  “Hur!  If un’s the best Scotland Yard could let out to ye, sir—­a half-baked old softy like that!—­the rest of ’em must be a blessed poor lot, Ah’m thinkin’.  What’s un doin’ now, the noodle?—­snuffin’ the air like he did not understand the smell of it!  He’d not be expectin’ a stable to be scented with eau de cologne, would he?  What’s un name, sir?”

“Cleek.”

“Hur!  Sounds like a golf-stick—­an’ Ah’ve no doubt he’s got a head like one:  main thick and with a twist in un.  I dunna like ’tecs, Sir Henry, and I dunna like this one especial.  Who’s to tell as he aren’t in with they devils as is after Black Riot?  Naw!  I dunna like him at all.”

Meantime, serenely unconscious of the displeasure he had excited in Logan’s breast, Cleek went on sniffing the air and “poking about,” as he phrased it, in all corners of the stable; and when, a moment later, Sir Henry went in and joined him, he was standing before the door of the steel room examining the curving scratch of which the baronet had spoken.

“What do you make of it, Mr. Cleek?”

“Not much in the way of a clue, Sir Henry—­a clue to any possible intruder, I mean.  If your artistic soul hadn’t rebelled against bare steel—­which would, of course, have soon rusted in this ammonia-impregnated atmosphere—­and led you to put a coat of paint over the metal, there would have been no mark at all, the thing is so slight.  I am of the opinion that Tolliver himself caused it.  In short, that it was made by either a pin or a cuff button in his wristband when he was attacked and fell.  But, enlighten me upon a puzzling point, Sir Henry:  What do you use coriander and oil of sassafras for in a stable?”