a strange sight to see him
gradually master it until his eyes grew cold again. "Wait in the car,"
he said slowly. "I will get some money." We both went out, and as I was
getting into my overcoat in the hall I saw him enter the drawing-which,
you remember, was on the other side of the entrance hall.

'I stepped out on to the lawn before the house and smoked a cigarette,
pacing up and down. I was asking myself again and again where that
thousand pounds was; whether it was in the drawing-room, and if so, why.
Presently, as I passed one of the drawing-room windows, I noticed Mrs
Manderson's shadow on the thin silk curtain. She was standing at her
escritoire. The window was open, and as I passed I heard her say, "I
have not quite thirty pounds here. Will that be enough?" I did not hear
the answer, but next moment Manderson's shadow was mingled with hers,
and I heard the chink of money. Then, as he stood by the window, and
as I was moving away, these words of his came to my ears--and these
at least I can repeat exactly, for astonishment stamped them on my
memory--"I'm going out now. Marlowe has persuaded me to go for a
moonlight run in the car. He is very urgent about it. He says it will
help me to sleep, and I guess he is right."

I have told you that in the course of four years I had never once heard
Manderson utter a direct lie about anything, great or small. I believed
that I understood the man's queer, skin-deep morality, and I could have
sworn that if he was firmly pressed with a question that could not be
evaded he would either refuse to answer or tell the truth. But what had
I just heard? No answer to any question. A voluntary statement, precise
in terms, that was utterly false. The unimaginable had happened. It was
almost as if some one I knew well, in a moment of closest sympathy, had
suddenly struck me in the face. The blood rushed to my head, and I stood
still on the grass. I stood there until I heard his step at the front
door, and then I pulled myself together and stepped quickly to the car.
He handed me a banker's paper bag with gold and notes in it. "There's
more than you'll want there," he said, and I pocketed it mechanically.

'For a minute or so I stood discussing with Manderson--it was by one
of those tours de force of which one's mind is capable under great
excitement--points about the route of the long drive before me. I had
made the run several times by day, and I believe I spoke quite calmly
and nat