welcome to Merriton Towers. He won't get much out of Borkins though,
I don't mind telling you."

"Hmm. Well that remains to be seen, doesn't it, Mr. Narkom?" returned
Cleek, with a smile. "Dollops has a way. And he knows it. I'll warrant
there won't be much that Borkins can keep from the sharp little devil!
Well, it seems to be getting dusk rapidly, Sir Nigel, what about those
flames now, eh? I'd like to have a look at 'em if it's possible."

Merriton screwed his head round to the window, and noted the gathering
gloom which the fire and the electric lights within had managed to
neutralize. Then he got to his feet. There was a trace of excitement
in his manner. Here was the moment he had been waiting for, and here the
master-mind which, if anything ever could, must unravel this fiendish
mystery that surrounded two men's disappearances and a group of silly,
flickering little flames.

He turned from the window with his eyes bright.

"Look here," he said, rapidly. "They're just beginnin' to appear. See
'em? Mr. Cleek, see 'em? Now tell me what the dickens they are and how
they are connected with Dacre Wynne's disappearance."

Cleek got to his feet slowly, and strode over to the window. In the
gathering gloom of the early winter night, the flames were flashing out
one by one, here and there and everywhere hanging low against the grass
across the bar of horizon directly in front of them. Cleek stared at them
for a long time. Mr. Narkom coming up behind him peered out over his
shoulder, rubbed his eyes, looked again and gave out a hasty "God bless
my soul!" of genuine astonishment, then dropped into silence again, his