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CLEEK OF SCOTLAND YARD
“My only kingdom is here ... in this dear woman’s arms. Walk with me, Ailsa ... as my queen and my wife.”
THE INTERNATIONAL
ADVENTURE LIBRARY
THREE OWLS EDITION
CLEEK OF
SCOTLAND YARD
Detective Stories
BY
T. P. HANSHEW
Author of “Cleek the Master Detective”,
“Cleek’s Government Cases” etc.
W. R. CALDWELL & CO.
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1912, 1913, 1914, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian.
Cleek of Scotland Yard
3PROLOGUE
The Affair of the Man Who Vanished
Mr. Maverick Narkom, Superintendent at ScotlandYard, flung aside the paper he was reading andwheeled round in his revolving desk-chair, all alert on theinstant, like a terrier that scents a rat.
He knew well what the coming of the footsteps toward hisprivate office portended; his messenger was returning at last.
Good! Now he would get at the facts of the matter, andbe relieved from the sneers of carping critics and the pinpricks of overzealous reporters, who seemed to think thatthe Yard was to blame, and all the forces connected with itto be screamed at as incompetents if every evildoer in Londonwas not instantly brought to book and his craftiestsecrets promptly revealed.
Gad! Let them take on his job, then, if they thought thething so easy! Let them have a go at this business of stoppingat one’s post until two o’clock in the morning trying topatch up the jumbled fragments of a puzzle of this sort, ifthey regarded it as such child’s play—finding an assassinwhom nobody had seen and who struck with a methodwhich neither medical science nor legal acumen could traceor name. Then, by James....
The door opened and closed, and Detective SergeantPetrie stepped into the room, removing his hat and standingat attention.
4“Well?” rapped out the superintendent, in the sharpstaccato of nervous imp