‘Hush!’ I whispered.  ‘There’s someone in the next room.’

I swept her behind a stack of furniture, with my eyes glued on a crack of light below the door.  The handle turned and the shadows raced before a big electric lamp of the kind they have in stables.  I could not see the bearer, but I guessed it was the old woman.

There was a man behind her.  A brisk step sounded on the parquet, and a figure brushed past her.  It wore the horizon-blue of a French officer, very smart, with those French riding-boots that show the shape of the leg, and a handsome fur-lined pelisse.  I would have called him a young man, not more than thirty-five.  The face was brown and clean-shaven, the eyes bright and masterful . . .  Yet he did not deceive me.  I had not boasted idly to Sir Walter when I said that there was one man alive who could never again be mistaken by me.

I had my hand on my pistol, as I motioned Mary farther back into the shadows.  For a second I was about to shoot.  I had a perfect mark and could have put a bullet through his brain with utter certitude.  I think if I had been alone I might have fired.  Perhaps not.  Anyhow now I could not do it.  It seemed like potting at a sitting rabbit.  I was obliged, though he was my worst enemy, to give him a chance, while all the while my sober senses kept calling me a fool.

I stepped into the light.

‘Hullo, Mr Ivery,’ I said.  ‘This is an odd place to meet again!’

In his amazement he fell back a step, while his hungry eyes took in my face.  There was no mistake about the recognition.  I saw something I had seen once before in him, and that was fear.  Out went the light and he sprang for the door.

I fired in the dark, but the shot must have been too high.  In the same instant I heard him slip on the smooth parquet and the tinkle of glass as the broken window swung open.  Hastily I reflected that his car must be at the moat end of the terrace, and that therefore to reach it he must pass outside this very room.  Seizing the damaged escritoire, I used it as a ram, and charged the window nearest me.  The panes and shutters went with a crash, for I had driven the thing out of its rotten frame.  The next second I was on the moonlit snow.

I got a shot at him as he went over the terrace, and again I went wide.  I never was at my best with a pistol.  Still I reckoned I had got him, for the car which was waiting below must come back by the moat to reach the highroad.  But I had forgotten the great closed park gates.  Somehow or other they must have been opened, for as soon as the car started it headed straight for the grand avenue.  I tried a couple of long-range shots after it, and one must have damaged either Ivery or his chauffeur, for there came back a cry of pain.

I turned in deep chagrin to find Mary beside me.  She was bubbling with laughter.

’Were you ever a cinema actor, Dick?  The last two minutes have been a really high-class performance.  “Featuring Mary Lamington.”  How does the jargon go?’