“Harry talked dashed nonsense, did he? I quite believe it. He’s as good a chap as ever breathed, but his idiot of an uncle has stuffed his head with maggots. Go on, Mr Hannay.”
My day as roadman excited him a bit. He made me describe the two fellows in the car very closely, and seemed to be raking back in his memory. He grew merry again when he heard of the fate of that ass Jopley.
But the old man in the moorland house solemnized him. Again I had to describe every detail of his appearance.
“Bland and bald-headed and hooded his eyes like a bird.... He sounds a sinister wild-fowl! And you dynamited his hermitage, after he had saved you from the police. Spirited piece of work, that!” Presently I reached the end of my wanderings. He got up slowly, and looked down at me from the hearthrug.
“You may dismiss the police from your mind,” he said. “You’re in no danger from the law of this land.”
“Great Scot!” I cried. “Have they got the murderer?”
“No. But for the last fortnight they have dropped you from the list of possibles.”
“Why?” I asked in amazement.
“Principally because I received a letter from Scudder. I knew something of the man, and he did several jobs for me. He was half crank, half genius, but he was wholly honest. The trouble about him was his partiality for playing a lone hand. That made him pretty well useless in any Secret Service—a pity, for he had uncommon gifts. I think he was the bravest man in the world, for he was always shivering with fright, and yet nothing would choke him off. I had a letter from him on the 31st of May.”
“But he had been dead a week by then.”