At last Esdaile saw the point. His behavior _had_ been extraordinary for whole minutes before the situation had been explained to him. One would have thought that during those minutes he had been deliberately trying to find out how much we knew about something or other before committing himself. When next he spoke it was almost apologetically. "I see," he said quietly at last. "Yes, you're perfectly right. That was certainly the proper way to take it--just be decently upset. I see now. I must have looked a perfect zany.... Now look here: I want to tell you both all about it, but the trouble is that I can't just at this moment. At present it's somebody else's affair, not mine at all. Must get that cleared up first. I'm not perfectly sure of my ground either; you'll see by and by. But as regards the accident--well, that's the whole point at present. I mean anybody would say it _was_ an accident, wouldn't they? It _looked_ like one, I mean? It would never occur to anybody who saw it that----" But here he broke off abruptly as his wife appeared in the doorway. VII Perhaps at this point I had better tell you who "I" am who write this, and also how our little circle came to choose me for the task. As a minor actor in these events you may set me down as a working journalist. Among other things I am one of the sub-editors of the _Daily Circus_. But that is not the whole of my life. I am also a novelist of sorts. And one of my reasons for sticking to journalism when I could manage at a pinch to do without it is that in this way I escape the doom of having to produce two novels a year whether I have anything to write about or not. But that was not their idea in asking me to put into shape the mosaic of differently-colored pieces that constitutes this Case. I believe their idea was that my two capacities might supplement one another--that I might hold fast (so to speak) to the bed-rock facts with my journalistic hand while the other was left free for the less tangible elements. I don't know that I altogether agree with this distinction. I happen to have some experience of how much fiction people swallow when they take up their morning papers, and also of how much mere hurdy-gurdy-grinding they accept as "human nature" when it comes to them in the form of a novel. But that is their look-out. I told them that with their help I would do my best. I had to have their help. Obviously I could not always be at the side of this person or that, Rooke or Esdaile or Hubbard, throughout every winding of a complicated chain of events. But I have known Esdaile for twenty years, Rooke for a dozen, and most of the others long enough to have a fairly reliable impression of them, and their accounts are quite trustworthy. If I have any doubt about this I say so.