"Fortune played my cards for me. Quite innocently and unintentionally. I tempted him. I said if I could be sure he was my employer I'd keep him in touch with everything I was doing. I had also let him know that my employer had made it an absolute condition that his name was not to appear. He evidently wanted badly to know what I was doing, and thought he was safe not to be given away." "Then have you kept him in touch with everything you have done?" Carrington smiled. "I tell you, Mr. Cromarty, my cards were being played for me. Five minutes later I asked him who benefited by the will and I learned that you had scored the precise sum of L1200." "I hadn't thought of that when I made my limit L1200!" exclaimed Ned. "Lord, you must have bowled me out at once! Of course, you spotted the coincidence straight off?" "But Rattar didn't! I pushed it under his nose and he didn't see it! Inside of one second I'd asked myself whether it was possible for an astute man like that not to notice such a coincidence supposing he had really guaranteed me exactly that sum--an extraordinarily large and curious sum too." "I like these simple riddles," said Ned with a twinkle in his single eye. "I guess your answer to yourself was 'No!'" Carrington nodded. "That's what I call having my cards played for me. I knew then that the man was lying; so I threw him off the scent, changed the subject, and did _not_ keep Mr. Simon Rattar in touch with any single thing I did after that." "Good for you!" said Ned. "Good so far, but the next riddle wasn't of the simple kind--or else I'm even a bigger ass than I endeavour to look! What was the man's game?" "Have you spotted it yet?" Carrington shook his head. "Mr. Simon Rattar's game is the toughest proposition in the way of puzzles I've ever struck. While I'm at it I'll just tell you one or two other small features of that first interview." He lit a cigarette and leant over the arm of his chair towards his visitor, his manner growing keener as he talked. "I happened to have met Miss Farmond that morning and my interview had knocked the bottom out of the story that she was concerned in the crime. I had satisfied myself also that she was not engaged to Sir Malcolm." "How did you discover that?" exclaimed Ned. "Her manner when I mentioned him. But I found that old Rattar was wrong on both these points and apparently determined to remain wrong. Of course, it might have been a mere error of judgment, but at the same time he had no evidence whatever against her, and it seemed to suggest a curious bias. And finally, I didn't like the look of the man." "And then you came out to see me?" "I went out to Keldale House first and then out to you. I next interviewed Sir Malcolm." "Interviewed Malcolm Cromarty!" exclaimed Ned. "Where?"