Cleek looked up, and that curious smile which Narkom knew so well—­and would have known had he been there was the “danger signal”—­looped up one corner of his mouth.

“I fancy it is all ‘light,’ Sir Henry,” he said.  “I may be wrong, but I fancy it is merely a question of comparative height.  Do I puzzle you by that?  Well, let me explain.  Lady Wilding there is one height, Mr. Sharpless is another, and I am a third; and if they two were to place themselves side by side and, say, about four inches apart, and I were to stand immediately behind them, the difference would be most apparent.  There you are.  Do you grasp it?”

“Not in the least.”

“Bothered if I do either,” supplemented Sharpless.  “It all sounds like tommy rot to me.”

“Does it?” said Cleek.  “Then let me explain it by illustration”—­and he walked quietly towards them.  “Lady Wilding, will you oblige me by standing here?  Thank you very much.  Now, if you please, Mr. Sharpless, will you stand beside her ladyship while I take up my place here immediately behind you both?  That’s it exactly.  A little nearer, please—­just a little, so that your left elbow touches her ladyship’s right.  Now then”—­his two hands moved briskly, there was a click-click, and after it:  “There you are—­that explains it, my good Mr. and Mrs. Filippo Bucarelli; that explains it completely!”

And as he stepped aside on saying this, those who were watching, those who heard Lady Wilding’s scream and Mr. Sharpless’s snarling oath and saw them vainly try to spring apart and dart away, saw also that a steel handcuff was on the woman’s right wrist, its mate on the man’s left one, and that they were firmly chained together.

“In the name of Heaven, man,” began Sir Henry, appalled by this, and growing red and white by rapid turns.

“I fancy that Heaven has very little to do with this precious pair, Sir Henry,” interposed Cleek.  “You want the two people who are accountable for these diabolical crimes, and—­there they stand.”

“What!  Do you mean to tell me that Sharpless, that my wife—­”

“Don’t give the lady a title to which she has not and never had any legal right, Sir Henry.  If it had ever occurred to you to emulate my example to-night and search the lady’s effects, you would have found that she was christened Enriqua Dolores Torjado, and that she was married to Senor Filippo Bucarelli here, at Valparaiso, in Chili, three years ago, and that her marriage to you was merely a clever little scheme to get hold of a pot of money and share it with her rascally husband.”

“It’s a lie!” snarled out the male prisoner.  “It’s an infernal policeman’s lie!  You never found any such thing!”

“Pardon me, but I did,” replied Cleek serenely.  “And what’s more, I found the little phial of coriander and oil of sassafras in your room, senor, and—­I shall finish off the Mynga Worm in another ten minutes!”