“I hurried to the nearest cloakroom and hastily removed my makeup. I did not want to be laid by the heels for picking a dead man’s pocket. Then I retraced my steps to the Hyde Park Hotel. Nadina was still having lunch. I needn’t describe in detail how I followed her down to Marlow. She went into the house, and I spoke to the woman at the lodge, pretending that I was with her. Then I, too, went in.”

He stopped. There was a tense silence.

“You will believe me, Anne, won’t you? I swear before God that what I am going to say is true. I went into the house after her with something very like murder in my heart⁠—and she was dead! I found her in that first-floor room⁠—God! It was horrible. Dead⁠—and I was not more than three minutes behind her. And there was no sign of anyone else in the house! Of course I realized at once the terrible position I was in. By one masterstroke the blackmailed had rid himself of the blackmailer, and at the same time had provided a victim to whom the crime would be ascribed. The hand of the Colonel was very plain. For the second time I was to be his victim. Fool that I had been to walk into the trap so easily.

“I hardly know what I did next. I managed to go out of the place looking fairly normal, but I knew that it could not be long before the crime was discovered and a description of my appearance telegraphed all over the country.

“I lay low for some days, not daring to make a move. In the end chance came to my aid. I overheard a conversation between two middle-aged gentlemen in the street, one of whom proved to be Sir Eustace Pedler. I at once conceived the idea of attaching myself to him as his secretary. The fragment of conversation I had overheard gave me my clue. I was now no longer so sure that Sir Eustace Pedler was the Colonel. His house might have been appointed as a rendezvous by accident, or for some obscure motive that I had not fathomed.”

“Do you know,” I interrupted, “that Guy Pagett was in Marlow at the date of the murder?”

“That settles it then. I thought he was at Cannes with Sir Eustace.”