that something was altogether wrong and sinister,
and I felt myself to be the object of it. Yet Manderson was surely no
enemy of mine. Then my thoughts reached out wildly for an answer to the
question why he had told that lie. And all the time the blood hammered
in my ears: 'Where is that money?' Reason struggled hard to set up the
suggestion that the two things were not necessarily connected. The
instinct of a man in danger would not listen to it. As we started, and
the car took the curve into the road, it was merely the unconscious part
of me that steered and controlled it, and that made occasional empty
remarks as we slid along in the moonlight. Within me was a confusion and
vague alarm that was far worse than any definite terror I ever felt.

"About a mile from the house, you remember, one passed on one's left a
gate on the other side of which was the golf-course. There Manderson
said he would get down, and I stopped the car. 'You've got it all
clear?' he asked. With a sort of wrench I forced myself to remember and
repeat the directions given me. 'That's O. K.,' he said. 'Good-by, then.
Stay with that wallet.' Those were the last words I heard him speak as
the car moved gently away from him."

Marlowe rose from his chair and pressed his hands to his eyes. He was
flushed with the excitement of his own narrative, and there was in his
look a horror of recollection that held both the listeners silent. He
shook himself with a movement like a dog's, and then, his hands behind
him, stood erect before the fire as he continued his tale.

"I expect you both know what the back-reflector of a motor-car is."

Trent nodded quickly, his face alive with anticipation; but Mr. Cupples,
who cherished a mild but obstinate prejudice against motor-cars, readily
confessed to ignorance.

"It is a small round or more often rectangular mirror," Marlowe
explained, "rigged out from the right side of the screen in front of the
driver, and adjusted in such a way that he can see, without turning
round, if anything is coming up behind to pass him. It is quite an
ordinary appliance, and there was one on this car. As the car moved on,
and Manderson ceased speaking behind me, I saw in that mirror a thing
that I wish I could forget."

Marlowe was silent for a moment, staring at the wall before him.

"Manderson's face," he said in a low tone. "He was standing in the road,
looking after me, only a few yards behind, and the moonlight was full on
h