ing 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
his face. The mirror happened to catch it for an instant.

'Physical habit is a wonderful thing. I did not shift hand or foot on
the controlling mechanism of the car. Indeed, I dare say it steadied me
against the shock to have myself braced to the business of driving. You
have read in books, no doubt, of hell looking out of a man's eyes, but
perhaps you don't know what a good metaphor that is. If I had not known
Manderson was there, I should not have recognized the face. It was that
of a madman, distorted, hideous in the imbecility of hate, the teeth
bared in a simian grin of ferocity and triumph; the eyes.... In the
little mirror I had this glimpse of the face alone. I saw nothing of
whatever gesture there may have been as that writhing white mask glared
after me. And I saw it only for a flash. The car went on, gathering
speed, and as it went, my brain, suddenly purged of the vapours of doubt
and perplexity, was as busy as the throbbing engine before my feet. I
knew.

'You say something in that manuscript of yours, Mr Trent, about the
swift automatic way in which one's ideas arrange themselves about some
new illuminating thought. It is quite true. The awful intensity of
ill-will that had flamed after me from those straining eyeballs poured
over my mind like a searchlight. I was thinking quite clearly now, and
almost coldly, for I knew what--at least I knew whom--I had to fear, and
instinct warned me that it was not a time to give room to the emotions
that were fighting to possess me. The man hated me insanely. That
incredible fact I suddenly knew. But the face had told me, it would
have told anybody, more than that. It was a face of hatred gratified, it
proclaimed some damnable triumph. It had gloated over me driving away to
my fate. This too was plain to me. And to what fate?

'I stopped the car. It had gone about two hundred and fifty yards, and
a sharp bend of the road hid the spot where I had set Manderson down. I
lay back in the seat and thought it out. Something was to happen to me.
In Paris? Probably--why else should I be sent there, with money and a
ticket? But why Paris? That puzzled me, for I had no melodramatic ideas
about