It did not take more than twenty minutes to cover the distance between Portman Square and the Imperial Institute, and they found that aristocratic building a veritable whirlwind of repressed excitement. It was closed to the public, and downstairs in the outer hall was already assembled an army of expert packers, ready to despatch the units of the exhibition to their respective galleries. But toward none of these men did the two stolid-looking policemen give even a passing glance.

It was the redoubtable secretary whom Cleek was most anxious to see, and two minutes later found him in that gentleman's presence. Narkom's assertion that Mr. Belthouse was "half out of his mind over the matter" had prepared him to find an excitable, fear-shaken, harassed official, while his own expectations were of seeing a shifty-eyed individual who had succeeded in effecting a clever coup. He found instead a serious-faced, undemonstrative man of about forty-five, with the kindest eyes and the handsomest and most sympathetic countenance he had seen for many a day.

"I am glad to meet you, Mr. Headland," he said, heartily, after the first formalities were over; and Cleek, who had assumed, as he always did at first introduction, a heavy, befogged expression indicative of incompetence, felt his suspicions of Charles Galveston Belthouse melting away like snow beneath a winter sun. "This business has me distracted, and if you can hunt up any sort of clue that'll keep the directors quiet for a few days, I'll be only too glad. When I undertook to see this business through for my friend, the Marquis of Willingsley, I didn't expect to run up against the British police."

"It's a pretty tall order, Mr. Belthouse," said Cleek, scratching his head perplexedly, "but I'll have a thorough look around, anyway."

If he had anticipated any sign of confusion upon the part of Mr. Belthouse, he was wholly disappointed, for the man, with a sudden and unexpected burst of enthusiasm, seized his hand and pressed it warmly, saying heartily:

"Oh, do, Mr. Headland, do. Search anywhere, do anything that will get on to the track of the thieves. One blessing is, they cannot offer the statue for sale in open market. It is intrinsically utterly valueless, and what the object of stealing it at all is I can't imagine. Still it must be got back somehow, without the Italian Government's knowing what has happened. Personally, I don't mind saying, I'll give every penny I have in the world, if only you can get it restored safe and sound."

Cleek darted a swift look at the speaker, but the man was evidently in dead earnest.

"Your sentiments do you credit, sir," he said, stolidly, "and I'll do my best. First of all, who was it that discovered the actual loss of the statue?"

"I did, myself," was the prompt reply. "I came early to see which statues were to be sent off first, and although some ten minutes were spent pacifying a confounded woman——"

Cleek twitched an inquiring eyebrow.

"Oh, an indignant female who stayed too late and got locked in all night."

Cleek looked at Mr. Narkom, as if mutely asking why he had not been told of this fact before, and Mr. Narkom looked back blankly at his ally.

"First I've heard of it," he said, quickly, and the secretary looked from one to the other in bewilderment. Then he laughed.

"Why, what's wrong? You don't think that a fat old woman could have smuggled out the Capitoline Venus in her reticule, do you? I never gave thought to her on that score. She says she got locked in one of the distant galleries, and though she hammered and shouted, she couldn't make a soul hear. She went off in a cab that one of our men fetched for her—wouldn't have a taxi, must have a fourwheeler—and swore vengeance against the whole board of directors. She declared it had been done on purpose, and we should hear from her solicitors. Regular old virago, I do assure you."

"Did you get her name and address?" asked Cleek.

"Good gracious, no. I was only too glad to get rid of her. I dare say Thompson can give you the address she gave the cabby, though. I'll send for him, if you like."

"Yes, do, please," said Cleek. "I don't suppose there is any connection, but you never know your luck. What happened after the young lady—did you say?—had gone?"

"Young lady!" The secretary smiled broadly. "She was about sixty-five if a day, with a face like a full moon, and a ridiculous child's hat perched on her head. She was no Venus, I assure you. After she had gone I went upstairs with my friend, Doctor Montret—I had met him just coming down the Cromwell Road, and I was jolly glad he was with me—when we came plump on the body of poor Scott. The sight of it and that empty pedestal gave me all sorts of thoughts of murder and burglary, but Montret soon found that the poor fellow had died naturally. As I take it, he must have been making his rounds and when he came down the gallery, and discovered the loss, he dropped dead with the shock. But you shall see for yourself."

While talking he had led the way down one passage and up another, till they were in the actual gallery from which the famous statue had so mysteriously vanished. It stood out in one of the wings of the Institute, its steel-barred windows on each side, being some thirty or forty feet clear from the ground. The walls were lined with pictures, not one of which obviously had been moved, and it seemed impossible for secret entry to have been made either during the day or the night.

The empty pedestal stood some six feet away from the wall, against which stood some heavy grouped figures and examples in plaster of bas-relief.

For a few minutes Cleek walked aimlessly round and round the gallery, his eyes dull and heavy, his face stupidly blank in expression.

Suddenly he looked up at the exquisitely painted ceiling and gave an inane little chuckle that caused the secretary to look at him in surprise.

"I see," he exclaimed. "I wondered where it came from; but I suppose you have had the ceiling repaired—eh, what?"

If ever a man looked puzzled, it was the secretary.

"Ceiling repaired?" he echoed. "Really, Mr. Headland, I can't understand you. What on earth makes you think that?"

Mr. Headland pointed to two or three flecks of powdered plaster, obviously dropped from the ceiling above, but the secretary only gave a little sniff of contempt.

"Vibration of the traffic," he exclaimed. "No one's been near the ceiling." He turned suddenly. "Ah, here is Thompson. If you think you will want that address——?" He was clearly not very taken with the deductive powers of Mr. Headland, and he showed it very plainly.

"Yes, sir," said Thompson, when Cleek had questioned him. "Quite plain I heard it: 'Imperial Mansions, Shepherd's Bush,' and I dare say I could find out from the cabman himself. He's sure to be on the stand outside."

Dismissed on this errand, he left the gallery, while Cleek wandered to the window, which looked out on a little courtyard. His eyes noted almost unconsciously the presence of a large moving van standing near the gateway to the street.

"Oh, Mr. Belthouse," he exclaimed, "going to move the blessed statues in a furniture van?"

Mr. Belthouse joined him, but his voice was even more irritable as he exclaimed:

"Certainly not; that must be for the effects of the caretaker. She has lived in the basement, but she said she was moving as soon as the exhibition was over. And now, perhaps, Mr. Headland, if you don't mind my saying so, my time is valuable. So if you will ask me anything else you want to know——?"

Cleek stopped short in his prowl at the top end of the gallery, and stood, looking the very picture of perplexity.

"This case fair stumps me, Mr. Belthouse, I must say. Perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me where this door leads to?"

He touched the frame of a door almost concealed by a huge picture which was hung across it.

"That? Oh, that, I believe, opens on to a passage which leads to the caretaker's quarters. Very estimable people, the Perrys, mother and daughter, and I should say the Institute people will be sorry to lose them. They are moving, as you noticed, and into the country. This door, though, has been kept locked and screwed up—you can see the screws for yourself, can't you?—so there has been no possible means of ingress or egress. Anything else, Mr. Headland?"

Mr. Headland shook his head dolefully.

"Nothing to be learned here. I think I'd like to get that address, the old woman's, you know," he added, meekly.

"Oh, that! Still thinking of that elderly Venus, eh? Well, I'll go and find Thompson for you myself," said the now openly sneering Mr. Belthouse.

"Any ideas, old chap?" whispered Mr. Narkom, as his ally bent down and touched another few flakes of plaster-like white powder.

"Bushels," was the laconic reply. "But when a mouse gets into a trap, what does it do?"

"Why, stays in, of course!" said the mystified Narkom, and Cleek gave a little satisfied laugh as he lurched to the end of the hall where Mr. Charles Galveston Belthouse, in a supremely bad temper, arrived a moment later in company with the stalwart commissionaire, Thompson.

"No go, sir; no sign of that blessed cab, and the taxi men never noticed it on the stand before. They are rare in these parts nowadays, sir. I hardly expected to get one, only the good lady was set on it. Said she wouldn't go near one of those dangerous motor things, and the way she sniffed even at the cabby——!"

A queer little smile crept round Mr. Headland's mouth.

"It's of no importance, my man. I don't think we shall want either the cab or the good lady again."

The man returned to his own post, and Cleek followed the secretary from the gallery. But a little distance away he stopped short, feeling in his pocket, then uttered a little cry of dismay.

"I thought I heard it. Excuse me, sir, it's my pen. I dropped it. Won't keep you waiting a minute."

He turned and ran swiftly back, returning some three minutes later, the pen in his hand, a smile on his face, and still further patches of white on his coat that would have suggested to even a less keen observer than Mr. Narkom that he had been very near to the ceiling.

"And now to see the body, Mr. Belthouse," he said, briskly, looking placidly at that gentleman's perturbed face as he opened the door of a little room wherein had been borne the body of the unfortunate policeman.