“Yes, Salt asked my opinion about that chap.”

“What opinion could you have?”

“Question of sanity again.”

“What do you think?”

“Hopelessly sane, I should say. You didn’t take him for crazed, did you?”

“No; I suppose his talk was fabricated.”

“From Salt’s account, I judged it was—most of it, anyhow.”

“Which part do you exempt?”

“Well, wasn’t there an urgent warning about calling off the dogs, and a reference to golden-haired woman? Believe me, Bannerlee, this Mac-whatever-his-name-was meant what he said just then.”

“Perhaps. But what I wanted to tell you, Doctor, was that I can’t help connecting Maryvale with that man. The physical differences in their appearance aren’t so great that they couldn’t be one and the same, what with a false beard stuck on crooked, and the rest of it. It’s unlikely, of course, but still—”