. I told Sir Walter about tiger-fish in the
Zambesi that bite off your fingers if you give them a chance, and we
discussed sport up and down the globe, for he had hunted a bit in his
day.

We went to his study for coffee, a jolly room full of books and
trophies and untidiness and comfort. I made up my mind that if ever I
got rid of this business and had a house of my own, I would create just
such a room. Then when the coffee-cups were cleared away, and we had
got our cigars alight, my host swung his long legs over the side of his
chair and bade me get started with my yarn.

'I've obeyed Harry's instructions,' he said, 'and the bribe he offered
me was that you would tell me something to wake me up. I'm ready, Mr
Hannay.'

I noticed with a start that he called me by my proper name.

I began at the very beginning. I told of my boredom in London, and the
night I had come back to find Scudder gibbering on my doorstep. I told
him all Scudder had told me about Karolides and the Foreign Office
conference, and that made him purse his lips and grin.

Then I got to the murder, and he grew solemn again. He heard all about
the milkman and my time in Galloway, and my deciphering Scudder's notes
at the inn.

'You've got them here?' he asked sharply, and drew a long breath when I
whipped the little book from my pocket.

I said nothing of the contents. Then I described my meeting with Sir
Harry, and the speeches at the hall. At that he laughed uproariously.

'Harry talked dashed nonsense, did he? I quite believe it. He's as
good a chap as ever breathed, but his idiot of an uncle has stuffed his
head with maggots. Go on, Mr Hannay.'

My day as roadman excited him a bit. He made me describe the two
fellows in the car very closely, and seemed to be raking back in his
memory. He grew merry again when he heard of the fate of that ass
Jopley.

But the old man in the moorland house solemnized him. Again I had to
describe every detail of his appearance.

'Bland and bald-headed and hooded his eyes like a bird ... He sounds a
sinister wild-fowl! And you dynamited his hermitage, after he had
saved you from the police. Spirited piece of work, that!' Presently I
reached the end of my wanderings. He got up slowly, and looked down at
me from the hearth-rug.

'You may dismiss the police from your mind,' he said. 'You're in no
danger from the law of this land.'

'Great Scot!' I cried. 'Have they got the murderer?'