Again his lips twitched; but otherwise he did not move.
"I remember," he answered. "My men saw me run away. I came out of it quite clean."
I said: "I saw the man afterwards in hospital at Cape Town. His name was Somers. He told me quite a different story."
His face grew grey. He glanced at me for a fraction of a second. "What did he tell you?" he asked quietly.
In the fewest possible words I repeated what I have set down already in this book. When I had ended, he said in the same toneless way:
"You have believed that all these years?"
"I have done my best not to believe it. The last twelve months have disproved it."
He shook his head. "They haven't. Nothing I can do in this world can disprove it. What that man said was true."
"True?"
I drew a deep breath and stared at him hard. His eyes met mine. They were very sad and behind them lay great pain. Although I expressed astonishment, it proceeded rather from some reflex action than from any realised shock to my consciousness. I say the whole thing was uncanny. I knew, as soon as he sat down by the table, that he would confess to the Vilboek story. And yet, at last, when he did confess and there were no doubts lingering in my mind, I gasped and stared at him.