had more reason to disbelieve the evidence of my own eyes.  The light was on, too.  Lucky for us we didn’t pop our heads up at the moment when someone was there.  But then the servants are all gone.  Borkins is keeping the house open until after the trial.  So it was Borkins who was using that light, that’s pretty obvious; and our necks have been spared by an inch or two less than I had imagined.  We must hurry; time’s short, and there’s a good deal to be got through this night, I can tell you!”

“Yessir,” said Dollops, not knowing what else to say, for Cleek was keeping up a sort of running monologue of his ideas of the case.  “Don’t think much uv this ’ere passage, anyway, do you?”

“No—­narrower than the rest.  But it may end just where we want to go.  ‘Journeys end in lovers’ meetings’ the poet sings, but not this kind of a journey—­no, not exactly.  We’ll find the hangman’s rope at the end of this riddle, Dollops, or I’m very much mistaken; and I’ve an uncomfortable idea as to who will swing in the noose.”

For some time after that they pressed on in silence.  Here and there along the passage the walls opened out suddenly into little cut-out places filled as ever with their built-up sacks.  Each time Cleek passed them he chuckled aloud, and then—­once more his face would become grim.  For some moments they groped along in the gloom, their heads bent, to prevent them bumping the low mud ceiling, their lips silent, but in the hearts of each a sort of dull dread.  Merriton Towers!  Borkins, perhaps.  But what if Borkins and Merriton had been working hand-in-glove, and then, somehow or other, had had a split?  That would account for a good deal, and in particular the man’s attitude toward his master....  Cleek’s brain ran on ahead of his feet, his brows drew themselves into a knot, his mouth was like a thin line of crimson in the granite-like mask of his face.

Of a sudden he stopped and pointed ahead of him.  Still another flight of stairs met their eyes, but they were of newer, more recent make, and composed of common deal, unvarnished and mudstained with the marks of many feet up and down their surface.

Cleek drew a deep breath, and his face relaxed.

“The end of the journey, Dollops,” he said softly.

Then, without more ado, he mounted the stairs, and laid his shoulder to the heavy door.

CHAPTER XXVI

JUSTICE—­AND JUSTIFICATION

The court room was crowded on every side.  There was barely space for another person to enter in comfort, and when the news went round in the street that Sir Nigel Merriton, late of the army, was being tried for his life, and that things were going pretty black against him, all London seemed to turn out with a morbid curiosity to hear the sentence of death passed.