ing the glossy triumph of a
Bond Street hatter, and looked at it and not at the Doctor, who said:

"You refer to the murder of the Mother-Superior at the Convent of the Holy
Way on February the --th, 1900. And you say a person _then_ unknown....
Has the murderer been arrested?"

Major Bingo shook his head.

"He hasn't been arrested, but his name is known. You remember the runner
who came in from Diamond Town with a letter for a man called Casey? Not
long after--after my wife was exchanged for a spy of Brounckers'?"

"I did not see the man myself," returned Saxham, "but I perfectly
recollect his getting through."

Major Bingo said:

"I thought you would. Well, the letter was a blind; the bearer an agent of
the firm of Huysmans and Eybel, sent to make certain of our weakest points
before they put in the attack on the Barala town; and--that's the man who
committed the murder!"

"The man who committed the murder?"

Saxham's vivid eyes were intent upon the Major's face. The Major coughed,
and went on:

"My wife came across that man at Tweipans under curious circumstances,
which I'm here to put before you as plainly as may be.... She'd met him
before the Siege, travelling up from Cape Town. He scraped acquaintance,
called himself a loyal Johannesburger, and an Agent of the British South
African War-Intelligence-Bureau. Not that there ever was such a Bureau."
Major Bingo blinked nervously, and ran a thick finger round the inside of
his collar as he added: "The beggar spoofed Lady Hannah up hill and down
dale with that, and she believed him. And when she subsequently flew the
coop--dash this cold of mine!..."

The Major drew out a very large pink cambric pocket-handkerchief, and
performed behind its shelter an elaborate but unconvincing sneeze:

"--When she shot the moon with Nixey's mare and spider, it was by private
arrangement with this oily, lying blackguard, who had given her an
address--a farm on the Transvaal Border, known as Haargrond Plaats--where
she might communicate with him through another scoundrel in the Transport
Agency line, supposin' she chose to do a little business on her own in
Secret Intelligence----"

Saxham interrupted:

"I shall say nothing to my wife of this, and I trust you will impress upon
Lady Hannah that it would be highly inadvisable for her to do so."

"She won't, you may depend on it." Major Bingo palpably grew warm, and
mopped the dew from his large, kind, rather stupid counte