neighbourhood.

"I needn't bother you now with all the details of how I actually ran
them to earth. It wasn't an easy job. They weren't the sort of people
who left any spare bits of evidence lying around, and by the time I
found out where they were living it was just too late." He turned to
me. "Otherwise, Mr. Lyndon, I think we might possibly have had the
pleasure of meeting earlier."

A sudden forgotten recollection of my first interview with McMurtrie
flashed vividly into my mind.

"By Jove!" I exclaimed. "What a fool I am! I knew I'd heard your name
somewhere before."

Latimer nodded. "Yes," he said. "I daresay I had begun to arouse a
certain amount of interest in the household by the time you arrived."
He paused. "By the way, I am still quite in the dark as to how you
actually got in with them. Had they managed to send you a message into
the prison?"

"No," I said. "I'm equally in the dark as to how you've found out who
I am, but you seem to know so much already, you may as well have the
truth. It was chance; just pure chance and a bicycle. I hadn't the
remotest notion who lived in the house. I was trying to steal some
food."

Latimer nodded again. "It was a chance that a man like McMurtrie
wasn't likely to waste. I don't know yet how you're paying him for his
help, but I should imagine it's a fairly stiff price. However, we'll
come back to that afterwards.

"I was just too late, as I told you, to interrupt your pleasant little
house-party. I managed to find out, however, that some of you had gone
to London, and I followed at once. It was then, I think, that the
doctor decided it was time to take the gloves off.

"So far, although I'd been on their heels for weeks, I hadn't set eyes
on any of the gang personally. All the same, I had a pretty good idea
of what McMurtrie and Savaroff were like to look at, and I fancy they
probably guessed as much. Anyhow, as you know, it was the third
member of the brotherhood--a gentleman who, I believe, calls himself
Hoffman--who was entrusted with the job of putting me out of the way."

A faint mocking smile flickered for a moment round his lips.

"That was where the doctor made his first slip. It never pays to
underestimate your enemy. Hoffman certainly had a good story, and
he told it well, but after thirteen years in the Secret Service I
shouldn't trust the Archbishop of Canterbury till I'd proved his
credentials. I agreed to dine at Parelli's, but I took the prec