Don't say I can't size a man up. So we settled down to having a good time together, just lazing around, reading, talking, swimming, cooking when Mrs. Pitts wasn't there. I put out of my head what was going to happen after. She said that in about ten days she'd have to leave the cottage. I tried to go after the first day, out of politeness, but she wouldn't let me. And after that I didn't try. That's how I came to be staying there, and that's how I didn't know her name." He drew in his breath in a sharp sigh as he sat back. "Now I know how these psychoanalysts make money. It's a long time since I enjoyed anything like telling you all about myself."

Grant smiled involuntarily. There was an engaging childlikeness about the boy.

Then he shook himself mentally, like a dog coming out of water.

Charm. The most insidious weapon in all the human armory. And here it was, being exploited under his nose. He considered the good-natured feckless face dispassionately. He had known at least one murderer who had had that type of good looks; blue-eyed, amiable, harmless; and he had buried his dismembered fiancée in an ash pit. Tisdall's eyes were of that particular warm opaque blue which Grant had noted so often in men to whom the society of women was a necessity of existence. Mother's darlings had those eyes; so sometimes, had womanizers.

Well, presently he would check up on Tisdall. Meanwhile —

"Do you ask me to believe that in your four days together you had no suspicion at all of Miss Clay's identity?" he asked, marking time until he could bring Tisdall unsuspecting to the crucial matter.

"I suspected that she was an actress. Partly from things she said, but mostly because there were such a lot of stage and film magazines in the house. I asked her about it once, but she said: 'No names, no pack drill. It's a good motto, Robin. Don't forget. "

"I see. Did the outfit Miss Clay bought for you include an overcoat?"

"No. A mackintosh. I had a coat."

"You were wearing a coat over your evening things?"

"Yes. It had been drizzling when we set out for dinner — the crowd and I, I mean."

"And you still have that coat?"

"No. It was stolen from the car one day when we were over at Dymchurch." His eyes grew alarmed suddenly. "Why? What has the coat got to do with it?"

"Was it dark- or light-colored?"

"Dark, of course. A sort of gray-black.