were frequently agitated; for no one can be even remotely connected with
crime in one form or another without showing excitement to a greater or
lesser degree. And so his manner by no means set Sir Nigel apart from
many another visitor to the Superintendent's sanctum.

Mr. Narkom's cordial nod brought from the young man a demand to see "Mr.
Cleek," of whom he had heard such wonderful tales. Mr. Narkom, with one
eye on that very gentleman's back, announced gravely that Cleek was
absent on a government case, and asked what he could do. He waved a hand
in Cleek's direction and said that here was one of his men who would
doubtless be able to help Sir Nigel in any difficulty he might happen
to be in at the moment.

Now, as Sir Nigel's story was a long one, and as the young man was
too agitated to tell it altogether coherently, we will go back for a
certain space of time, and tell the very remarkable story, the details
of which were told to Mr. Narkom and his nameless associate in the
Superintendent's office, and which was to involve Cleek of Scotland Yard
in a case which was later to receive the title of the Riddle of the
Frozen Flame.

Much that he told them of his family history was already known to Cleek,
whose uncanny knowledge of men and affairs was a by-word, but as that
part of the story itself was not without romance, it must be told too,
and to do so takes the reader back to a few months before his present
visit to the precincts of the Law, when Sir Nigel Merriton returned to
England after twelve years of army life in India. A few days he had spent
in London, renewing acquaintances, revisiting places he knew--to find
them wonderfully little changed--and then had journeyed to Merriton
Towers, the place which was to be his, due to the extraordinary