at large? Is this a game you have
been playing? Explain yourselves at once. What does it mean?"

The American, with first a glance at the others, rose and bowed
courteously.

"I am not a murderer, Sir Andrew, believe me," he said; "you need not
be alarmed. As a matter of fact, at this moment I am much more afraid of
you than you could possibly be of me. I beg you please to be indulgent.
I assure you, we meant no disrespect. We have been matching stories,
that is all, pretending that we are people we are not, endeavoring to
entertain you with better detective tales than, for instance, the last
one you read, 'The Great Rand Robbery.'"

The Baronet brushed his hand nervously across his forehead.

"Do you mean to tell me," he exclaimed, "that none of this has happened?
That Lord Chetney is not dead, that his Solicitor did not find a letter
of yours written from your post in Petersburg, and that just now, when
he charged you with murder, he was in jest?"

"I am really very sorry," said the American, "but you see, sir, he could
not have found a letter written by me in St. Petersburg because I have
never been in Petersburg. Until this week, I have never been outside
of my own country. I am not a naval officer. I am a writer of short
stories. And tonight, when this gentleman told me that you were fond of
detective stories, I thought it would be amusing to tell you one of my
own--one I had just mapped out this afternoon."

"But Lord Chetney _is_ a real person," interrupted the Baronet, "and he
did go to Africa two years ago, and he was supposed to have died there,
and his brother, Lord Arthur, has been the heir. And yesterday Chetney
did return. I read it in the papers." "So did I," assented the American
soothingly; "and it struck me as being a very good plot for a story.
I mean his unexpected return from the dead, and the probable
disappointment of the younger brother. So I decided that the younger
brother had better murder the older one. The Princess Zichy I invented
out of a clear sky. The fog I did not have to invent. Since last night I
know all that there is to know about a London fog. I was lost in one for
three hours."

The Baronet turned grimly upon the Queen's Messenger.

"But this gentleman," he protested, "he is not a writer of short
stories; he is a member of the Foreign Office. I have often seen him
in Whitehall, and, according to him, the Princess Zichy is not an
invention. He says she is very well known,