That fetched a cheer, and I woke them up a bit when I started in to tell them the kind of glorious business I thought could be made out of the Empire if we really put our backs into it.

Altogether I fancy I was rather a success. The minister didn’t like me, though, and when he proposed a vote of thanks, spoke of Sir Harry’s speech as ‘statesmanlike’ and mine as having ‘the eloquence of an emigration agent’.

When we were in the car again my host was in wild spirits at having got his job over. ‘A ripping speech, Twisdon,’ he said. ‘Now, you’re coming home with me. I’m all alone, and if you’ll stop a day or two I’ll show you some very decent fishing.’

We had a hot supper—and I wanted it pretty badly—and then drank grog in a big cheery smoking-room with a crackling wood fire. I thought the time had come for me to put my cards on the table. I saw by this man’s eye that he was the kind you can trust.

‘Listen, Sir Harry,’ I said. ‘I’ve something pretty important to say to you. You’re a good fellow, and I’m going to be frank. Where on earth did you get that poisonous rubbish you talked tonight?’

His face fell. ‘Was it as bad as that?’ he asked ruefully. ‘It did sound rather thin. I got most of it out of the PROGRESSIVE MAGAZINE and pamphlets that agent chap of mine keeps sending me. But you surely don’t think Germany would ever go to war with us?’

‘Ask that question in six weeks and it won’t need an answer,’ I said. ‘If you’ll give me your attention for half an hour I am going to tell you a story.’

I can see yet that bright room with the deers’ heads and the old prints on the walls, Sir Harry standing restlessly on the stone curb of the hearth, and myself lying back in an armchair, speaking. I seemed to be another person, standing aside and listening to my own voice, and judging carefully the reliability of my tale. It was the first time I had ever told anyone the exact truth, so far as I understood it, and it did me no end of good, for it straightened out the thing in my own mind. I blinked no detail. He heard all about Scudder, and the milkman, and the note-book, and my doings in Galloway. Presently he got very excited and walked up and down the hearth-rug.

‘So you see,’ I concluded, ‘you have got here in your house the man that is wanted for the Portland Place murder. Your duty is to send your car for the police and give me up. I don’t think I’ll get very far. There’ll be an accident, and I’ll have a knife in my ribs an hour or so after arrest. Nevertheless, it’s your duty, as a law-abiding citizen. Perhaps in a month’s time you’ll be sorry, but you have no cause to think of that.’

He was looking at me with bright steady eyes. ‘What was your job in Rhodesia, Mr Hannay?’ he asked.

‘Mining engineer,’ I said. ‘I’ve made my pile cleanly and I’ve had a good time in the making of it.’

‘Not a profession that weakens the nerves, is it?’

I laughed. ‘Oh, as to that, my nerves are good enough.’ I took down a hunting-knife from a stand on the wall, and did the old Mashona trick of tossing it and catching it in my lips. That wants a pretty steady heart.

He watched me with a smile. ‘I don’t want proof.