“Don’t hiss at me, Pagett,” I said, drawing back a little, “and do control your breathing. Your idea is absurd. Why should they want to have a secret meeting in the middle of the night? If they’d anything to say to each other, they could hobnob over beef tea in a perfectly casual and natural manner.”

I could see that Pagett was not in the least convinced.

“ Something was going on last night, Sir Eustace,” he urged, “or why should Rayburn assault me so brutally.”

“You’re quite sure it was Rayburn?”

Pagett appeared to be perfectly convinced of that. It was the only part of the story that he wasn’t vague about.

“There’s something very queer about all this,” he said. “To begin with, where is Rayburn?”