I gazed at him in a kind of stupor. I might have known, all along, that a man like Pagett couldn’t have a guilty secret. The respectability of Pagett has always been my bane. That’s just the kind of secret he would have⁠—a wife and four children.

“Have you told this to anyone else?” I demanded at last, when I had gazed at him in fascinated interest for quite a long while.

“Only Miss Beddingfeld. She came to the station at Kimberley.”

I continued to stare at him. He fidgeted under my glance.

“I hope, Sir Eustace, that you are not seriously annoyed?”

“My dear fellow,” I said, “I don’t mind telling you here and now that you’ve blinking well torn it!”