They that climb the highest have the farthest to fall.
It was after five o'clock when the limousine arrived at the premises
of Trent & Son, and Cleek, guided by the junior member of the firm
and accompanied by Superintendent Narkom, climbed the steep stairs to
the housetop and was shown into the glass-room.
His first impression, as the door swung inward, was of a scent
of flowers so heavy as to be oppressive; his second, of entering
into a light so brilliant that it seemed a very glare of gold,
for the low-dropped sun, which yellowed all the sky, flooded the
place with a radiance which made him blink, and it was some little
time before his eyes could accustom themselves to it sufficient
to let him discover that the old Italian waxworker was there, busy
on his latest tableau.
Cleek blinked and looked at the old man, serenely at first, then
blinked and looked again, conscious of an overwhelming sense of
amazement and defeat for just one fraction of a minute, and that
some of his cocksure theories regarding the case had suddenly been
knocked into a cocked hat.
No wonder Mr. Harrison Trent had spoken of deterioration in the art
of this once celebrated modeller. No wonder!
The man was not Giuseppe Loti at all!--not that world-famed worker
in wax who had sworn in those bitter other days to have the life of
the vanished James Colliver.