"That's fair enough. I'll tell you," he said. "But first I want to hear something from you: you'll see why. So I suppose you'll want to see my credentials. I'm from Pittsburgh — I happen to be Assistant Commissioner of Police. Understand, I only came into this semi-officially, and because the Secretary of War at Washington happens to be a great friend of mine. Take a look at these. Also, here's an introductory letter from the Secretary of War. Also a passport….
"Now then," he added, lighting a match for my cigar, "if you think you can trust me, tell me the whole story from A to Izzard. Then I'll swap information, and I don't think you'll be the loser. Well?"
"Go on, Ken," said Evelyn. "I want to get it straight myself. And there are a couple of questions H.M. told me to ask you."
This time I went over the business at great length, while the night-wind grew cooler through the window, and the wheels clacked drowsily, and Stone's white suit accumulated cinders.
so," I said, "we've got another instalment of puzzles since H.M. got the last bulletin. It's now not only an affair of furniture changed in a room, and two missing books, and four pairs of cuff-links. Add to that a £100 note hidden away in a newspaper which Mrs. Antrim says she found cast away in the scullery. I'm not for a moment suggesting that Mrs. Antrim poisoned Hogenauer. She'd hardly feed a man with strychnine out of her own laboratory, and then rush over to make sure he'd taken it. But just how does she figure in the muddle? Then there's Serpos. Who is Serpos? What is he? On the face of it, there's nothing whatever to connect Serpos with Hogenauer. Yet the evening Hogenauer is poisoned is the evening Serpos chooses to run away with… whatever he did run away with. Look here, Evelyn, you were with H.M. back there. What the devil did Serpos steal, anyway?"
She shook her head. She was hunched back into a travelling-coat, her hands cradled in her sleeves, and the hazel eyes looked more subdued now.
"I don't know. You don't seem to realize, Ken, that it's only been a couple of hours since this whole thing started. Back there they were all rushing about, and swearing, and I rather got elbowed aside. They only saw a use for me, and said what a nice gal I was, when you were stranded in Moreton Abbot without money or clothes." She looked up and grinned. "You seem to have done fairly well for yourself, though," she crowed. "Ken, I hate to say it, but I'm almost proud of you."
Stone grunted.
"Well, if you ask me," he said, "it's taking fool risks. I tell you, this fellow Merrivale is even crazier than he's made out! This is no place for you, young lady." He glowered at Evelyn, who wrinkled her nose at him, and then she commenced to study the floor with an expression of sinister wisdom. "If I understand you… by the way, fhat is your name, actually?"
`Blake."