He extended his hand, and I noticed for the first time that he was holding his cigarette case. "This is the real culprit," he answered. "I put the blessed thing on the mantelpiece last night and forgot all about it. Of course at three o'clock this morning I felt I wanted a smoke more than anything on earth. I hung on as long as I could because I was afraid of waking you up, but at last it got to a point when I simply couldn't stick it. I crawled down like a mouse, and I was just thinking I had done the trick all right when you suddenly popped up over the banisters and gave me the start of my life." He paused, and, helping himself to a cigarette, held out the case. "I am frightfully sorry," he added. "It's a rotten trick to drag one's host out of bed merely because one happens to be the slave of a bad habit." He made his explanation with such delightful ease that if I had not known he was lying it would certainly have convinced me. "There is no need to apologise," I said. "You gave me a really enjoyable five minutes. I had quite decided you were a burglar, and I was looking forward to breaking your head." He eyed me and the poker with a kind of cool appreciation. "I am glad you found out your mistake in time," he said. "There's something unpleasantly primitive about you, Dryden, especially when you're in pyjamas." All the while he was speaking I had been taking careful stock of our immediate surroundings. As far as I could see nothing had been disturbed--indeed, I had come down so quickly on his heels that he had had practically no chance of getting up to mischief. I realised now that what I ought to have done was to have given him a few minutes' grace, and a mortifying suspicion that I had made a hash of the whole affair began to rankle in my mind. For a moment I was badly tempted to take him by the neck and see if I could shake the truth out off him then and there. The feeling that I might be running Christine into danger still kept me in check, however, and with a masterly effort I managed to preserve my politeness. "We had better have a drink and go back to bed," I observed, "unless you'd like to stroll round the island and admire the beauty of the dawn." As I spoke I moved towards the French window, and at the same moment a huge black shape loomed up on to the verandah outside. "Hullo!" I added. "Here's somebody else come to see what the matter is. Quite a family party, isn't it?" I unbolted and opened the window, and, waving his tail in a kind of dignified acknowledgment, Satan strolled slowly into the room. He pulled up short on seeing Manning; then, apparently satisfied that as long as I was present things must be more or less in order, he proceeded to seat himself very deliberately right in the middle of the hearthrug. I refastened the bolt and turned back to my guest.