"It is true," said M. Poizat reluctantly.
"If you had only said that last night," thought Harry Rames. "You would have got your advertisement, my friend."
But he said not a word aloud, and M. Poizat continued:
"But it was a long time ago. And all the years since I have spent in Ludsey."
Colonel Challoner shook his head.
"It was not in Ludsey that I saw you. For I was never here in my life before."
M. Poizat shrugged his shoulders.
"We have sat opposite to one another in a train perhaps. We have run against one another in the traffic of a London street."
"No, it was on some occasion more important. I do not forget a face."
"Nor I," said M. Poizat. "And I have never seen yours, sir, until this moment;" and though he spoke with spirit his uneasiness was apparent to every one at that table.