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236 Jo'burg will probably be a heap of smoking ruins by tomorrow, so it may be your last chance."

I thought that that would get rid of him successfully for the morning, at any rate.

"There is something I want to say to you when you have the leisure, Sir Eustace."

"I haven't got it now," I said hastily. "At this minute I have absolutely no leisure whatsoever."

Pagett retired.

"By the way," I called after him, "what was there in those cases of Mrs. Blair's?"

"Some fur rugs, and a couple of fur—hats, I think."

"That's right," I assented. "She bought them on the train. They are hats—of a kind—though I hardly wonder at your not recognizing them. I dare say she's going to wear one of them at Ascot. What else was there?"

"Some rolls of films and some baskets—a lot of baskets"

"There would be," I assured him. "Mrs. Blair is the kind of woman who never buys less than a dozen or so of anything."

"I think that's all, Sir Eustace, except some miscellaneous odds and ends, a motor-veil and some odd gloves—that sort of thing."

"If you hadn't been a born idiot, Pagett, you would have seen from the start that those couldn't possibly be my belongings."

"I thought some of them might belong to Miss Pettigrew."

"Ah, that reminds me—what do you mean by picking me out such a doubtful character as a secretary?"

And I told him about the searching cross-examination I had been put through. Immediately I was sorry, I saw a glint in his eye that I knew only too well. I changed