Up to this day Phil Courtney, despite minor squalls on the part of his sitters, had been a happy man. "Still ghosting," he admitted. "Who is it this time?"
"Quite a bigwig, they tell me. Fellow from the War Office, by the way."
"Oh? What's his name?"
"Merrivale. Sir Henry Merrivale."
Frank Sharpless, who had again lifted the tankard to his lips, slowly set h down untasted.
"You," he said slowly, like one anxious to define the terms carefully, "you are going to write the reminiscences of Sir Henry Merrivale?"
"Yes. He told the publisher he hadn't time to write 'em himself, but he didn't mind dictating it. Of course that's what a lot of them say, and as a rule it doesn't mean much. I shall have to edit it—"
"Edit it?" roared Sharpless. "You'll have to burn it."
"Meaning what? They tell me he was a big shot during the War, and that he's been mixed up in any number of well-known murder cases."
"And no shadow of doom," said Sharpless, eyeing Courtney with real curiosity in his good-looking, rather fine-drawn face, "no shadow of doom darkens your fair day. No warning voice whispers in your ear: 'Get out of here, and stay out while you've still got your reason.' Well, it won't be long now."