Cleek blew a cloud of smoke into the air.

“Oh, you’ll have another dose of it before you’re entirely finished!” he responded.  “When the case comes on in London. That’s the ticklish part of the business.  We’ll meet there again, I expect, as Mr. Lake and I will be bound to give our evidence—­which is a thankless task at the best of times....  Hello!  Dollops, got the golf-clubs and walking-sticks?  That’s a good lad.  Now we’ll be off to old London again—­eh, Lake?  Good-bye, Borkins.  Best of luck.”

“Good-bye, gentlemen.”

The two men got into the taxi Dollops had procured for them, while that worthy hopped on to the seat beside the driver and gave him the order to “Nip it for the eight o’clock train for Lunnon, as farst as you kin slide it, cabby!” To which the chauffeur made some equally pointed remark, and they were off.

But Borkins either did not realize that the eight-o’clock train for London was a slow one, or though that it was the most convenient for the two gentlemen most interested, because he did not give a thought to the matter that that particular train stopped at the next station, some three miles away from Fetchworth.  And even if he had and could have seen the two tough-looking sailormen who descended from the first-class compartment there and stepped on to the tiny platform among one or two others, he would never have dreamed of associating them with the Mr. Headland and his man Dollops who had such a short time ago left the Towers for London.

Which is just as well, as it happened, for it was with Borkins that Cleek and Dollops were most concerned.  Upon the probability of their friendship with the butler hung the chance of their getting work.  They had left Mr. Narkom to go up to London and keep his eyes open for any clues in the bank robberies case, and had promised to report to him as soon as possible, if there were anything to be gleaned at the factory.  Mr. Narkom had expressed his doubts about it, had told Cleek that he really did not see how any human agency could possibly get Nigel Merriton off, with such appalling evidence to damn him.  And what an electrical factory could have to do with it...!

“You forget the good Borkins’s connection with the affair,” returned Cleek, a trifle sharply, “and you forget another thing.  And that is, that I have found the man who attempted my life, and mean eventually to come to grips with him.  That is the only reason why I did not speak at the inquest this afternoon.  I am going to bide my time, but I’ll have the beggar in the end.  If working for a time at an electrical factory is going to help on matters, then work there I’m going to, and Dollops with me....

“If there should be need of me, don’t forget that I am Bill Jones, sailorman, once of Jamaica, now of the Factory, Saltfleet.  And stick to the code.  A wire will fetch me.”  He hopped out upon the platform just here, in his “cut-throat” make-up—­a little nastily done, for the time between the stations had been short—­but excellent, nevertheless; then as Mr. Narkom gripped his hand, he put his head into the carriage again.