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15th day of June. And that man is going to be your servant,

Franklin P. Scudder.'

I was getting to like the little chap. His jaw had shut like a rat-

trap, and there was the fire of battle in his gimlety eyes. If he was

spinning me a yarn he could act up to it.

'Where did you find out this story?' I asked.

'I got the first hint in an inn on the Achensee in Tyrol. That set me

inquiring, and I collected my other clues in a fur-shop in the Galician

quarter of Buda, in a Strangers' Club in Vienna, and in a little

bookshop off the Racknitzstrasse in Leipsic. I completed my evidence

ten days ago in Paris. I can't tell you the details now, for it's

something of a history. When I was quite sure in my own mind I

judged it my business to disappear, and I reached this city by a mighty

queer circuit. I left Paris a dandified young French-American, and I

sailed from Hamburg a Jew diamond merchant. In Norway I was an

English student of Ibsen collecting materials for lectures, but when I

left Bergen I was a cinema-man with special ski films. And I came

here from Leith with a lot of pulp-wood propositions in my pocket to

put before the London newspapers. Till yesterday I thought I had

muddied my trail some, and was feeling pretty happy. Then ...'

The recollection seemed to upset him, and he gulped down some

more whisky.

'Then I saw a man standing in the street outside this block. I

used to stay close in my room all day, and only slip out after dark

for an hour or two. I watched him for a bit from my window, and I

thought I recognized him ... He came in and spoke to the porter

... When I came back from my walk last night I found a card in

my letter-box. It bore the name of the man I want least to meet on

God's earth.'

I think that the look in my companion's eyes, the sheer naked

scare on his face, completed my conviction of his honesty. My own

voice sharpened a bit as I asked him what he did next.

'I realized that I was bottled as sure as a pickled herring, and that

there was only one way out. I had to die. If my pursuers knew I

was dead they would go to sleep again.'

'How did you manage it?'

'I told the man that valets me that I was feeling pretty bad, and I

got myself up to look like death. That wasn't difficult, for I'm no

slouch at disguises. Then I got a corpse - you can always get a

body in London if you know where to go for it. I fetched it back in

a trunk on the top of a four-wheeler, and I had to be assisted

upstairs to my room. You see I had to pile up some evidence for

the inquest. I went to bed and got my man to mix me a sleeping-

draught, and then told him to clear out. He wanted to fetch a

doctor, but I swore some and said I couldn't abide leeches. When I

was left alone I started in to fake up that corpse. He was my size,

and I judged had perished from too much alcohol, so I put some

spirits handy about the place. The jaw was the weak point in the

likeness, so I blew it away with a revolver. I daresay there will be

somebody tomorrow to swear to having heard a shot, but there are

no neighbours on my floor, and I guessed I could risk it. So I left

the body in bed dressed up in my pyjamas, with a revolver lying on

the bed-clothes and a considerable mess around. Then I got into a

suit of clothes I had kept waiting for emergencies. I didn't dare to

shave for fear of leaving tracks, and besides, it wasn't any kind of

use my trying to get into the streets. I had had you in my mind all

day, and there seemed nothing to do but to make an appeal to you.

I watched from my window till I saw you come home, and then

slipped down the stair to meet you ... There, Sir, I guess you

know about as much as me of this business.'

He sat blinking like an owl, fluttering with nerves and yet

desperately determined. By this time I was pretty well convinced

that he was going straight with me. It was the wildest sort of

narrative, but I had heard in my time many steep tales which had

turned out to be true, and I had made a practice of judging the man

rather than the story. If he had wanted to get a location in my flat,

and then cut my throat, he would have pitched a milder yarn.

'Hand me your key,' I said, 'and I'll take a look at the corpse.

Excuse my caution, but I'm bound to verify a bit if I can.'

He shook his head mournfully. 'I reckoned you'd ask for that,

but I haven't got it. It's on my chain on the dressing-table. I had to

leave it behind, for I couldn't leave any clues to breed suspicions.

The gentry who are after me are pretty bright-eyed citizens. You'll

have to take me on trust for the night, and tomorrow you'll get

proof of the corpse business right enough.'

I thought for an instant or two. 'Right. I'll trust you for the

night. I'll lock you into this room and keep the key. just one word,

Mr Scudder. I believe you're straight, but if so be you are not I

should warn you that I'm a handy man with a gun.'

'Sure,' he said, jumping up with some briskness. 'I haven't the

privilege of your name, Sir, but let me tell you that you're a white

man. I'll thank you to lend me a razor.'

I took him into my bedroom and turned him loose. In half an

hour's time a figure came out that I scarcely recognized. Only his

gimlety, hungry eyes were the same. He was shaved clean, his hair

was parted in the middle, and he had cut his eyebrows. Further, he

carried himself as if he had been drilled, and was the very model,

even to the brown complexion, of some British officer who had

had a long spell in India. He had a monocle, too, which he stuck in

his eye, and every trace of the American had gone out of his speech.

'My hat! Mr Scudder -' I stammered.

'Not Mr Scudder,' he corrected; 'Captain Theophilus Digby, of

the 40th Gurkhas, presently home on leave. I'll thank you to

remember that, Sir.'

I made him up a bed in my smoking-room and sought my own

couch, more cheerful than I had been for the past month. Things

did happen occasionally, even in this God-forgotten metropolis.

I woke next morning to hear my man, Paddock, making the deuce

of a row at the smoking-room door. Paddock was a fellow I had

done a good turn to out on the Selakwe, and I had inspanned him

as my servant as soon as I got to England. He had about as much

gift of the gab as a hippopotamus, and was not a great hand at

valeting, but I knew I could count on his loyalty.

'Stop that row, Paddock,' I said. 'There's a friend of mine,

Captain - Captain' (I couldn't remember the name) 'dossing down

in there. Get breakfast for two and then come and speak to me.'

I told Paddock a fine story about how my friend was a great

swell, with his nerves pretty bad from overwork, who wanted

absolute rest and stillness. Nobody had got to know he was here,

or he would be besieged by communications from the India Office

and the Prime Minister and his cure would be ruined. I am bound

to say Scudder played up splendidly when he came to breakfast. He

fixed Paddock with his eyeglass, just like a British officer, asked

him about the Boer War, and slung out at me a lot of stuff about

imaginary pals. Paddock couldn't learn to call me 'Sir', but he

'sirred' Scudder as if his life depended on it.

I left him with the newspaper and a box of cigars, and went

down to the City till luncheon. When I got back the lift-man had an

important face.

'Nawsty business 'ere this morning, Sir. Gent in No. 15 been and

shot 'isself. They've just took 'im to the mortiary. The police are

up there now.'

I ascended to No. 15, and found a couple of bobbies and an

inspector busy making an examination. I asked a few idiotic questions,

and they soon kicked me out. Then I found the man that had

valeted Scudder, and pumped him, but I could see he suspected

nothing. He was a whining fellow with a churchyard face, and half-

a-crown went far to console him.

I attended the inquest next day. A partner of some publishing firm

gave evidence that the deceased had brought him wood-pulp propositions,

and had been, he believed, an agent of an American business.

The jury found it a case of suicide while of unsound mind, and the few

effects were handed over to the American Consul to deal with. I gave

Scudder a full account of the affair, and it interested him greatly. He

said he wished he could have attended the inquest, for he reckoned it

would be about as spicy as to read one's own obituary notice.

The first two days he stayed with me in that back room he was

very peaceful. He read and smoked a bit, and made a heap of

jottings in a note-book, and every night we had a game of chess, at

which he beat me hollow. I think he was nursing his nerves back to

health, for he had had a pretty trying time. But on the third day I

could see he was beginning to get restless. He fixed up a list of the

days till June 15th, and ticked each off with a red pencil, making

remarks in shorthand against them. I would find him sunk in a

brown study, with his sharp eyes abstracted, and after those spells

of meditation he was apt to be very despondent.

Then I could see that he began to get edgy again. He listened for

little noises, and was always asking me if Paddock could be trusted.

Once or twice he got very peevish, and apologized for it. I didn't

blame him. I made every allowance, for he had taken on a fairly

stiff job.

It was not the safety of his own skin that troubled him, but the

success of the scheme he had planned. That little man was clean grit

all through, without a soft spot in him. One night he was very solemn.

'Say, Hannay,' he said, 'I judge I should let you a bit deeper into

this business. I should hate to go out without leaving somebody

else to put up a fight.' And he began to tell me in detail what I had

only heard from him vaguely.

I did not give him very close attention. The fact is, I was more

interested in his own adventures than in his high politics. I reckoned

that Karolides and his affairs were not my business, leaving all that to

him. So a lot that he said slipped clean out of my memory. I remember

that he was very clear that the danger to Karolides would not begin

till he had got to London, and would come from the very highest

quarters, where there would be no thought of suspicion. He mentioned

the name of a woman - Julia Czechenyi - as having something

to do with the danger. She would be the decoy, I gathered, to get

Karolides out of the care of his guards. He talked, too, about a Black

Stone and a man that lisped in his speech, and he described very

particularly somebody that he never referred to without a shudder -

an old man with a young voice who could hood his eyes like a hawk.

He spoke a good deal about death, too. He was mortally anxious

about winning through with his job, but he didn't care a rush for

his life.

'I reckon it's like going to sleep when you are pretty well tired

out, and waking to find a summer day with the scent of hay coming

in at the window. I used to thank God for such mornings way back

in the Blue-Grass country, and I guess I'll thank Him when I wake

up on the other side of Jordan.'

Next day he was much more cheerful, and read the life of Stonewall

Jackson much of the time. I went out to dinner with a mining

engineer I had got to see on business, and came back about half-past

ten in time for our game of chess before turning in.

I had a cigar in my mouth, I remember, as I pushed open the

smoking-room door. The lights were not lit, which struck me as

odd. I wondered if Scudder had turned in already.

I snapped the switch, but there was nobody there. Then I saw

something in the far corner which made me drop my cigar and fall

into a cold sweat.

My guest was lying sprawled on his back. There was a long knife

through his heart which skewered him to the floor.

CHAPTER TWO

The Milkman Sets Out on his Travels

I sat down in an armchair and felt very sick. That lasted for maybe

five minutes, and was succeeded by a fit of the horrors. The poor

staring white face on the floor was more than I could bear, and I

managed to get a table-cloth and cover it. Then I staggered to a

cupboard, found the brandy and swallowed several mouthfuls. I

had seen men die violently before; indeed I had killed a few myself

in the Matabele War; but this cold-blooded indoor business was

different. Still I managed to pull myself together. I looked at my

watch, and saw that it was half-past ten.

An idea seized me, and I went over the flat with a small-tooth

comb. There was nobody there, nor any trace of anybody, but I

shuttered and bolted all the windows and put the chain on the door.

By this time my wits were coming back to me, and I could think

again. It took me about an hour to figure the thing out, and I did

not hurry, for, unless the murderer came back, I had till about six

o'clock in the morning for my cogitations.

I was in the soup - that was pretty clear. Any shadow of a doubt

I might have had about the truth of Scudder's tale was now gone.

The proof of it was lying under the table-cloth. The men who

knew that he knew what he knew had found him, and had taken

the best way to make certain of his silence. Yes; but he had been in

my rooms four days, and his enemies must have reckoned that he

had confided in me. So I would be the next to go. It might be that

very night, or next day, or the day after, but my number was up

all right.

Then suddenly I thought of another probability. Supposing I

went out now and called in the police, or went to bed and let

Paddock find the body and call them in the morning. What kind of

a story was I to tell about Scudder? I had lied to Paddock about