He turned on her his straight uncanny glance.

’I have no equal with big game.  I have shot more lions than any man alive.  I think Jules Gerard, whom the French of the nineteenth century called Le Tueur de Lions, may have been fit to compare with me, but I can call to mind no other.’

This statement, made with the greatest calm, caused a moment of silence.  Margaret stared at him with amazement.

‘You suffer from no false modesty,’ said Arthur Burdon.

’False modesty is a sign of ill-breeding, from which my birth amply protects me.’

Dr Porhoet looked up with a smile of irony.

’I wish Mr Haddo would take this opportunity to disclose to us the mystery of his birth and family.  I have a suspicion that, like the immortal Cagliostro, he was born of unknown but noble parents, and educated secretly in Eastern palaces.’

’In my origin I am more to be compared with Denis Zachaire or with Raymond Lully.  My ancestor, George Haddo, came to Scotland in the suite of Anne of Denmark, and when James I, her consort, ascended the English throne, he was granted the estates in Staffordshire which I still possess.  My family has formed alliances with the most noble blood of England, and the Merestons, the Parnabys, the Hollingtons, have been proud to give their daughters to my house.’

‘Those are facts which can be verified in works of reference,’ said Arthur dryly.

‘They can,’ said Oliver.

’And the Eastern palaces in which your youth was spent, and the black slaves who waited on you, and the bearded sheikhs who imparted to you secret knowledge?’ cried Dr Porhoet.

‘I was educated at Eton, and I left Oxford in 1896.’

‘Would you mind telling me at what college you were?’ said Arthur.

‘I was at the House.’

‘Then you must have been there with Frank Hurrell.’

’Now assistant physician at St Luke’s Hospital.  He was one of my most intimate friends.’

‘I’ll write and ask him about you.’

‘I’m dying to know what you did with all the lions you slaughtered,’ said Susie Boyd.

The man’s effrontery did not exasperate her as it obviously exasperated Margaret and Arthur.  He amused her, and she was anxious to make him talk.

’They decorate the floors of Skene, which is the name of my place in Staffordshire.’  He paused for a moment to light a cigar.  ’I am the only man alive who has killed three lions with three successive shots.’

’I should have thought you could have demolished them by the effects of your oratory,’ said Arthur.

Oliver leaned back and placed his two large hands on the table.