“By Jove!” I exclaimed.  “What a fool I am!  I knew I’d heard your name somewhere before.”

Latimer nodded.  “Yes,” he said.  “I daresay I had begun to arouse a certain amount of interest in the household by the time you arrived.”  He paused.  “By the way, I am still quite in the dark as to how you actually got in with them.  Had they managed to send you a message into the prison?”

“No,” I said.  “I’m equally in the dark as to how you’ve found out who I am, but you seem to know so much already, you may as well have the truth.  It was chance; just pure chance and a bicycle.  I hadn’t the remotest notion who lived in the house.  I was trying to steal some food.”

Latimer nodded again.  “It was a chance that a man like McMurtrie wasn’t likely to waste.  I don’t know yet how you’re paying him for his help, but I should imagine it’s a fairly stiff price.  However, we’ll come back to that afterwards.

“I was just too late, as I told you, to interrupt your pleasant little house-party.  I managed to find out, however, that some of you had gone to London, and I followed at once.  It was then, I think, that the doctor decided it was time to take the gloves off.

“So far, although I’d been on their heels for weeks, I hadn’t set eyes on any of the gang personally.  All the same, I had a pretty good idea of what McMurtrie and Savaroff were like to look at, and I fancy they probably guessed as much.  Anyhow, as you know, it was the third member of the brotherhood—­a gentleman who, I believe, calls himself Hoffman—­who was entrusted with the job of putting me out of the way.”

A faint mocking smile flickered for a moment round his lips.

“That was where the doctor made his first slip.  It never pays to underestimate your enemy.  Hoffman certainly had a good story, and he told it well, but after thirteen years in the Secret Service I shouldn’t trust the Archbishop of Canterbury till I’d proved his credentials.  I agreed to dine at Parelli’s, but I took the precaution of having two of my own men there as well—­one in the restaurant and one outside in the street.  I had given them instructions that, whatever happened, they were to keep Hoffman shadowed till further orders.

“Well, you know how things turned out almost as well as I do.  I was vastly obliged to you for sending me that note, but as a matter of fact I hadn’t the least intention of drinking the wine.  Indeed, I turned away purposely to give Hoffman the chance to doctor it.  What did beat me altogether was who you were.  I naturally couldn’t place you at all.  I saw that you recognized one of us when you came in, and that you were watching our table pretty attentively in the glass.  I had a horrible suspicion for a moment that you were a Scotland Yard man, and were going to bungle the whole business by arresting Hoffman.  That was why I sent you my card; I knew if you were at the Yard you’d recognize my name.”