And I want you to think with me that he’s the best husband in the world for Marney.”

Jeff Legge laughed softly.

“Mr Kane, you embarrass me terribly. I’m not half good enough for her – I’m just an awkward brute that doesn’t deserve my good luck.”

He bent and kissed the white-faced girl. Johnny did not take his eyes from the man.

“Happy, eh? I’ll bet you’re happy, you rascal,” chuckled Kane.

Marney pulled herself away from the encircling arm.

“Daddy, I don’t think this is altogether amusing Johnny.” Her voice shook. The man from Dartmoor knew that she was on the verge of tears.

“It takes a lot to bore me.” John Gray found his voice. “Indeed, the happiness of young people – I feel very old just now – is a joy. You’re a Canadian, Major Floyd?”

“Yes – a French Canadian, though you wouldn’t guess that from my name. My people were habitant and went west in the ’sixties to Alberta and Saskatchewan, long before the railway came. You ought to go to Canada; you’d like it better than the place you’ve been to.”

“I’m sure I should.”

Peter had strolled away, the girl’s arm in his.

“No lions in Canada, tame, or wild,” said Jeff, regarding him from under his drooped eyelids.

Gray had lit a cigarette. He was steady now, steady of nerve and hand.

“I should feel lonely without lions,” he said coolly, and then: “If you will forgive my impertinence, Major Floyd, you have married a very nice girl.”

“The very, very best.”

“I would go a long way to serve her – a long way. Even back to the lions.”

Their eyes met. In the bridegroom’s was a challenge; in Johnny Gray’s cold murder. Jeff Legge’s eyes fell and he shivered.

“I suppose you like – hunting?” he said. “Oh, no, you said you didn’t. I wonder why a man of your character went abroad?”

“I was sent,” said Johnny, and he emphasised every word. “Somebody had a reason for sending me abroad – they wanted me out of the way. I should have gone, anyhow, but this man hurried the process.”

“Do you know who it was?”

The East African pretence had been tacitly dropped. Jeff might do so safely, for he would know that the cause of John Gray’s retirement from the world was no secret.

“I don’t know the man. He was a stranger to me. Very few people know him personally. In his set – our set – not half a dozen people could identify him. Only one man in the police knows him–”

“Who is that?” interrupted the other quickly.

“A man named Reeder. I heard that in prison – of course you knew I had come from Dartmoor?”

Jeff nodded with a smile.

“That is the fellow who is called The Great Unknown,” he said, striving to thin the contempt from his voice. “I’ve heard about him in the club. He is a very stupid person of middle age, who lives in Peckham. So he isn’t as much unknown as your mystery man!”

“It is very likely,” said the other. “Convicts invest their heroes and enemies with extraordinary gifts and qualities. I only know what I have been told. At Dartmoor they say Reeder knows everything. The Government gave him carte blanche to find the Big Printer–”

“And has he found him?” asked Jeff Legge innocently.

“He’ll find him,” said Johnny. “Sooner or later there will be a squeak.”

“May I be there to hear it,” said Jeff Legge, and showed his white teeth in a mirthless smile.

5

Johnny was alone in the lower garden, huddled up on a corner of the marble bench, out of sight but not out of hearing of the guests who were assembling on the lawn.