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Rh he opened the door and motioned to me to pass inside.

Sir Eustace Pedler sprang up to greet me, genial and smiling.

"Well, well, Miss Anne." He shook me warmly by the hand. "I'm delighted to see you. Come and sit down. Not tired after your journey? That's good."

He sat down facing me, still beaming. It left me rather at a loss. His manner was so completely natural.

"Quite right to insist on being brought straight to me," he went on. "Minks is a fool. A clever actor—but a fool. That was Minks you saw downstairs."

"Oh, really," I said feebly.

"And now," said Sir Eustace cheerfully, "let's get down to facts. How long have you known that I was the 'Colonel'?"

"Ever since Mr. Pagett told me that he had seen you in Marlow when you were supposed to be in Cannes."

Sir Eustace nodded ruefully.

"Yes, I told the fool he'd blinking well torn it. He didn't understand of course. His whole mind was set on whether I'd recognized him. It never occurred to him to wonder what I was doing down there. A piece of sheer bad luck that was. I arranged it all so carefully too, sending him off to Florence, telling the hotel I was going over to Nice for one night or possibly two. Then, by the time the murder was discovered, I was back again in Cannes, with nobody dreaming that I'd ever left the Riviera."

He still spoke quite naturally and unaffectedly. I had to pinch myself to understand that this was all real—that the man in front of me was really that deep-dyed criminal, the "Colonel." I followed things out in my mind.

"Then it was you who tried to throw me overboard on the Kilmorden," I said slowly. "It was you that Pagett followed up on deck that night?"