’The next step was that Mr. Tudor asked me to accompany his housekeeper to the housekeeper’s room, and on the other side of the passage from the drawing-room I was to dine with him.  The housekeeper is a Mrs. Dant, a kind, fat, lame old woman, and she produced this cloak and this hat, and so on, and said that they were for me!  I was surprised, but I praised them and tried them on for a moment.  You must remember that I was his affianced wife.  I talked with Mrs. Dant, and prepared myself for dinner, and then I went back to the drawing-room, and found Mr. Tudor ready for dinner.  I asked him why he had got the clothes, and he said he had got them this very morning merely on the chance of my accepting his proposal out of pity for him.  And I believed that, too.’

There was a silence.

‘But that is not the end?’ Hugo encouraged her.

‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, ’it is useless, all this story!  And the episode is finished!  When I came in here I was angry; I suspect you of some complicity.  But I suspect you no longer, and I see now that the wisest course for a woman such as I after such an adventure is to be mute about it, and to forget it.’

‘No,’ he said; ‘you are wrong.  Trust me.  I entreat.’

Camilla bit her lip.

‘We went into the dining-room, and dinner was served,’ she recommenced, ’and there I had my first shock, my first doubt, for one of the two waiters was your spy.’

‘Shawn!  My detective!’

Hugo was surprised to find that Albert, almost a novice in his vocation, had contrived to be so insinuating.

‘And he made a very bad waiter indeed,’ Camilla added.

‘I regret it,’ said Hugo.  ‘He meant well.’  ’When the waiters had gone I asked Mr. Tudor if they were his own servants.  He hesitated, and then admitted frankly that they were not.  He told me that his servants were out on leave for the evening.  “You don’t mean to say that I am now alone with you in the flat!” I protested.  “No,” he said quickly.  “Mrs. Dant is always in her room across the passage.  Don’t be alarmed, dearest.”  His tone reassured me.  After coffee, he took my photograph by flashlight.  He printed one copy at once, and then, after we had both been in the dark-room together, he returned there to get some more printing-paper.  While he was absent I went into the housekeeper’s room for a handkerchief which I had left there.  Mrs. Dant was not in the room.  But in a mirror I saw the reflection of a man hiding behind the door.  I was awfully frightened.  However, I pretended to see nothing, and tried to hum a song.  I same into the passage.  The passage window was open, and I looked out.  Another man was watching on the balcony.  Of course, I saw instantly it was a plot.  I—­I—­’

‘Did you recognise the men, then?’ Hugo asked.

’The one in the room I was not quite sure of.  The other, on the balcony, was your detective, I think.  I saw him disappear in this direction.’